Why the tea parties?

I have been asked in the last couple of weeks, since organizing the Nashville tea party, why are we doing this? What do we want?

I have been a political junkie since my early teens. My political coming of age and first opportunity to vote came in 1980, with the Reagan election. I have been active in politics since then. And I can say, I have never seen anything like this.

The election of Barack Obama was a watershed for the conservative movement. For the previous eight years, conservatives had watched their brand destroyed by a President, who ran as a conservative, yet governed as a liberal. Yet, with the election of the most left leaning President; a man who is arguable a socialist, if not a Marxist, people are standing up and saying they have had enough.

People are scared. With the exception of a few senior citizens who made it through the great depression, none of us have ever seen anything like this. Yet, everything Obama does, seems to be designed to either prolong the crisis or make certain he and his party maintain political power.

People are angry. With Obama celebrating his bankrupting bill with Martinis and $100 a pound steak, many people in this country feel that he is totally out of touch with the average American. With Obama having weekly meetings to decide who is on his enemies list, Americans are angry as they lose their jobs and their futures. Americans are angry because they are worried about their retirements and their children’s future while Obama and his wife seem mostly concerned with whether they are on the right party list with Washington society.

Most Americans work hard and work within the rules. Almost all of the bailouts Obama is pushing are geared, not for the hardworking Americans, but to those who were deadbeats and cheats. Those who are benefiting from the mortgage bailout are those who obtained what many in the mortgage industry referred to as “Liar Loans”. These were mortgages where no information was verified. Many of these bailouts are going to people who bought houses that no rational person would believe they could possibly pay for.

People are angry because as they are going told to cut back while the government not only does not cut back, but continues to spend and waste money at an unbelievable rate.

America is angry. Perhaps a little wrath is a good thing.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Today, we need no bloodshed. Only a lot of anger. And there are a lot of angry Americans.

Obama, are you listening?