I consider myself a typical conservative American and I have been active in the Tea Party movement since shortly after President Obama's inauguration in early-2009. I like to describe myself as a “Tea Party animal”.
My parents, both of whom were raised during the Great Depression, were Republicans and I registered as one upon reaching age eighteen. In high school, my American Government teacher served to help form my conservative ideals. Colonel Walker, a retired Army officer, had worked in some capacity at the US State Department and he also served as a city councilman in my small hometown in Central Florida. This was during the 1970s and the world was entrenched in the Cold War. Colonel Walker detested communism and pounded economic theory into his students. He taught us that, "The basic law of economics is 'scarcity'." Colonel Walker despised the freeloaders of society and he liked to refer to them as “suckers off the public *** (mammary gland)”.
My wife had a similar upbringing. Her father was an entrepreneur who developed a highly successful electrical contracting business. She shares her father's work ethic and disdain for freeloaders. Like Colonel Walker, my father-in-law loathes those that refuse to go out and work for a living.
There is an old adage that states that, "If you're not a liberal at age twenty, you have no heart and if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain." I went through my own "woe is me" phase while in my 20's and I once wrote a poem entitled "The Lament of the Working Class". Its opening stanza reads:
The moneyed pigs just get more money; it makes no sense; it sure seems funny.
The twenty or so stanzas that follow go on to whine about the "fact" that the rich get richer and that the workers only serve to keep them rich. At the time, I failed to realize the risks undertaken by the wealthy as they use their money to open businesses that serve to employ said workers. The poem closes by fantasizing about winning the lottery. But it shuts down any dreams of acquiring wealth with its final stanza:
This leisure life so great will seem. But tough luck, pal, it's just a dream.
I wrote that poem fifteen years or so before my true conservative awakening. In those days, I worked for a company which, I believed, paid me too little for the quality of the work that I performed. At the time, I found it far easier to whine about my financial situation than it was to actually DO something about it.
Fast forward to 2004, the year that Florida was pounded by four hurricanes. My wife and I were directly impacted by two of them - Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. Both storms came ashore on Florida's East Coast and trekked through the northern part of the state. Hurricane Jeanne dropped a very large hickory tree on our home rendering us homeless. Several months later, we rebuilt and we are especially proud of the fact that we did it on our own with no help from Uncle Sam (meaning no help from our fellow taxpayers).
Textbook middle-class Americans
My wife and I are textbook middle-class Americans. We both work hard for what we have and we are thankful for everything that God has given us. Like most conservatives, we are law-abiding individuals and we appreciate the rewards of hard work. We get up and go to work every day and we do not accept handouts from anyone. If there is something that we want or need, we save for it. We are both thankful for our conservative upbringings and proud of the fact that what we have, we have earned.
For the better part of two years now, Democrats in general and the hard-core left in particular have done their best to try to denigrate and disparage the Tea Party movement. Since the Tea Party became a part of the national political scene during the early days of the Obama administration, this has been the left’s modus operandi – to besmirch the movement and those people that participate in it. “Comedienne” Janeane Garafalo, in April of 2009, kicked off the left’s hatred of all things Tea Party by characterizing it as, “…racism, straight up. (It) is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks."
I attended my first Tea Party event – although it was not called that – on Tax Day (April 15th) 2009 in Columbus, Ohio. This gathering, which drew several thousand participants on a chilly, drizzly day, was an inspiration for me and served to galvanize my dedication to conservative principles and values. It was inspiring to see such a large number of patriotic Americans gathered together in one place. I have now attended at least a half dozen such gatherings and not once have I witnessed anything bordering upon unruliness. And I have certainly not seen a single person exhibit any kind of sign or placard that might be considered “racist”. To the contrary as a matter of fact. Tea Party participants are patriotic, freedom-loving Americans that espouse free markets and limited government. And I would much rather be in the company of these fine folks than with the wild, screaming mobs that I have seen recently in the news broadcasts from Madison, Wisconsin and elsewhere.
The “Kill the Bill” rally protesting the health care bill was held in Washington, DC in November 2009. It was attended, according to estimates, by 30,000-50,000 people. I was there that day to hear a number of great speakers including talk-show host Mark Levin, Congressman Tom Price, and actor Jon Voigt. This gathering, like the others that I have attended, was a great deal of fun. It was a thrill to be surrounded by so many like-minded people that day and a sense of optimism and camaraderie pervaded the event.
So, as you can see, I proudly walk the walk and talk the talk. I wear my Tea Party t-shirt with honor and dignity. And nothing that the demagogic, paranoid, rabid leftists can say will deter me.
I really AM a “Tea Party animal”.
