“This is America!
How many of you people want to pay your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?? Raise your hand!”
That was CNBC’s Rick Santelli and it was February 20, 2009 on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
“President Obama, are you listening?”
The Tax Day Tea Party that erupted that April 15th on the shores of Lake Michigan was a phenomenon that was repeated all around the country. From the ground up, this movement took flight with a passion that came as a surprise to even ourselves. Our patriot DNA, long dormant from complacency, sent shock waves warning blasts that couldn’t be ignored. We were off the couch. It didn’t take long to figure out that life would never be the same.
More than 200 people showed up in Bristol, Virginia that day, with that number almost repeated on the Tennessee side. Despite the delay from the town of Abingdon granting permission to assemble–until Virginia’s own Unalienable Rights Foundation stepped in–and only a couple days of lead time, around 300 folks showed up. Over in Kingsport, around 1200.
From that day, a core group of us found each other. We launched The 10th Amendment Foundation ( www.10thamendmentfoundation.org). We traveled to DC on 9/12/09 and were amazed when the groundswell of people filled Pennsylvania Avenue from the Washington Monument all the way to the Capitol building.
CNN reported 10,000 in attendance. Our own Bristol Herald Courier, whose reporter traveled with our group, estimated around 40,000. She was only off by 930,000; the real number became the research project of student at Indiana University who was there. He got so sick and tired of defending the size of the crowd, he decided to do a research paper, 15 pages complete with aerial footage and schematics.
In March of this year, we piled together in vans and drove again to DC to protest Obamacare a couple of days after the House Democrats voted to abandon the US Constitution by passing the “Slaughter” rule, the obscure, sleight-of-hand parlementarian trick that would actually allow passage of the largest loss of liberty this country has ever seen without an actual vote.
Yep—you can’t make this stuff up! Not only did Congress not bother to read the 2100-page bill, Nancy Pelosi decided they didn’t really need all the bother of voting on the actual bill. They would “deem” it passed.
Note to Southwest Virginia: Congressman Rick Boucher voted “Aye” in favor of Slaughter.
Then came the uproar. Followed by the arm-twisting, hijinks and monkey business that would become known as the Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase, and Stupak Sell-out. The House got their votes.
Note to Southwest Virginia: At 4PM on March 21st in Washington DC, why couldn’t Congressman Boucher’s aides tell us how he would be voting on this day?
It was a long ride back home.
We are called racist. Hatemongers.
Right wing nut-jobs. Domestic terrorists.
All by our own Department of Homeland Security.
We are none of those things.
We don’t want to “fundamentally change” America.
We want to fundamentally RESTORE our country to the
divinely inspired
vision that our Founders fought for, risking everything.
We are the Tea Party Movement.
WE HAVE A LOT TO DO!!!
Join us.
