A Guide to Political Tea Parties

There's a new movement going on mainly among Republicans. They are called tea parties and they were started in April on tax day as a protest against people who feel they are taxed too much.

Recently, I was able to go to one of these rallies and learn a bit more about them. The first thing that really struck me is even though it's not officially a partisan-issue, it might as well be. I'm guessing basically everyone that was in attendance was a Republican. The bashing of President Obama during the rally was something which made me think that.

There was also quite a bit of passion and enthusiasm from the event. About 250 people attended this event that I went to and many of them brought signs expressing their displeasure about the federal government. The sentiment among those in attendance as well is the country is going down the tubes and that if something isn't done now, we are all going to lose our freedom. There were a number of good speakers in attendance, and as far as I know, they were all Republican. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but be warned, if you are a moderate or even Democratic supporter, I would not recommend going to this type of events, you will be irritated.

About half an hour into the program, the leader of the program announced an open mic format. And head-shaking immediately followed. Most of the people were OK and didn't say anything too offending but after a few people, it got to be too many people and very repetitive. It also was starting to make the program go close to two hours long. The danger with that is you always seem to get that one crazy that really doesn't agree with the majority of the crowd and really just wants to stir things up. And that happened at the one I went to. Someone really riled up the crowd with some comments about welfare and hospitalization and guns. He certainly showed some courage but maybe that wasn't the best decision.

I'm sure this won't be the last type we hear about these "tea parties." I know there is a cross country trip planned for September and it is supposed to finish up in Washington on Sept. 12. The tea party movement appears to be gaining some steam and it will be interesting to see what happens with it in the future.