A few notes on today's Tax Day Tea Party at the State Capitol:
As I was coming down 23rd Street on my way to the Capitol, I noticed traffic backing up. At first I thought it might be part of the noon rush, but then it occurred to me that some of it might be people going to the Capitol for the rally.
I think some of it was: since returning home and checking online reports, I've seen estimates of between 2000 and 8000 people in the crowd. Capitol police officers reportedly estimated 4000.
There were a LOT of Gadsden flags flying (that's the one with the snake and "DON'T TREAD ON ME") - at least a dozen.
A lot of good signs: a few big ones with the names of the members of the Oklahoma Congressional delegation who voted for the original bailout bill - which was ALL of them, except for Inhofe, if I remember correctly. One sign said "I (heart) Capitalism". A tea themed sign: "I prefer sweet tea to koolaid".
I wore my ARI Ayn Rand Centenary T-Shirt. One young man with a group weaving their way through the crowd noticed my shirt as he went by and flipped his sign over to reveal the message, "Who is John Galt?"
The speeches were a mixed bag. Most of the speakers focused on taxes. One of them mentioned Daniel Hannan - I had posted his video on the OKC Tea Party Facebook page, along with some Ayn Rand Center links. Much was made of the popular dissatisfaction with government. There were a couple references to God. I was glad to hear the words "freedom" and "liberty" mentioned several times but I was also very disappointed when one speaker at the end - it may have been Mark Shannon - brought up a social-conservative laundry list of issues including abortion, gay rights and immigration that were completely beside the point - anti-freedom, in fact.
I have to admit it was very refreshing to see a crowd of that size in front of the Capitol and see NO politicians at the microphone!
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Just wanted to say that the laundry list that the speaker used in the end of the rally was to tell people not to vote on one issue. If a canidate is 99% for what you believe in but you refuse to vote for him/her because that 1%is a hot button topic like abortion, gay rights, etc... don't dismiss the canidate. Use your vote wisely and keep them accountable.
ReplyDeleteWell, OK, maybe I did miss that.
ReplyDeleteEven though they had a pretty powerful sound system, there were some things I didn't hear very clearly from where I was across the street from the South Steps.