The Downfall Of The Tea Party?

February 27 2009 The Birth of the Tea Party...I stood at the foot of Broadway in downtown San Diego with about 300 people who were pissed at a government already out of control. The mood was jubilant, friendly. Cars drove by honking at the homemade signs with slogans like these....

With the exception of one man who tried to run us over with his car while flipping us all "the bird", it was a great morning full of discussion, heated debate and optimism.

I didn't go because Fox News told me to, they didn't even know it was happening. I went because a friend of a friend said a bunch of people were going to protest the Porkulous Bill and would I like to go. That's all. That's what it was about. It was about Government out of control. About Pork. About Big Bad Big Brother pulling my hard earned money out of my pocket and lining the wallet of those who didn't earn it. That really get's me cheesed off.

Taxed Enough Already. T.E.A. It was good fun. It also meant a lot of like minded people could get together and share ideas for electing men and women to office who might actually be the voice of the people they represent.

The left wing media made us out to be racists, bigots, rednecks, homophobes and anti-government whack jobs. When really all we were was good, honest, hardworking Americans who were fed up. We were a melting pot of frustration in every race, creed, color and religion. We were tired of being sidelined by restraint, we wanted our voices heard.

But these days the media's first impression doesn't fall far from the tree in some cases. I have distanced myself from self proclaimed "Patriots" who think saying nigger over and over again just for the hell of it somehow serves as a message against PCBS. The Birthers with their inane litany of "show us your birth certificate". The radical righties who advocate violence. These days I have a hard time separating SOME of the Tea Partiers from the left wing radical freaks who like to throw bricks through military recruiting centers. I mean you know it's bad when even Fox News is linking Timothy McVeigh and Joe Stack, albeit loosely, to the Tea Party Movement.

I want my old TEA Party back. I want those good, honest, decent, law abiding, caring and deeply patriotic people back. I want the intelligent people who want to work to CHANGE Washington back to a representative body by my side again.

And I want the people who've hijacked this movement gone. Or really, this "movement" will have gone nowhere at all.

-Jenn 2/19/10