I took the commuter rail into Boston from my house which is about 30 miles west of Boston, and it was such a beautiful morning that the train ride turned out to be very pleasant. I had to park my car about a half-mile from the train station, because there was no room. As I walked up to the station, a car stopped about 25 feet away from me and the window came down. A woman asked if she could see my sign, so I proudly turned it to show it to her. She grinned, gave me a thumbs up and said "my husband is going in to the tea party rally too!"
As the train made its way towards Boston, I looked out at the countryside. Normally, I have found traveling by train to be somewhat less than scenic. Up in this part of the country, the train goes through heavily populated areas, and the areas along the sides of the track don't seem to be well maintained. Actually, in some cases those areas seem to be dumping areas for a wide variety of items. But as I passed through Acton, Concord, and the outskirts of Minute Man national Park, it made me remember the heritage of this part of the country. Today, Massachusetts is largely known to the rest of the country as one of the major epicenters of liberalism. Looking out the window, at some portions of the historic countryside, I thought of the people who once populated this area. Now, I know that even back in 1773 they weren't all patriots, and in 1776, they were actively disliked by none other than George Washington who considered the people of New England to be dirty, opportunistic, unprincipled and undisciplined. (Hey, that certainly defines most of our politicians appear these days...)
As much as the genteel Virginian Washington disdained the New Englanders of that day, he saw what they were capable of the night they fortified Dorchester Heights under the very nose of the English army less than a mile away. Gen. Howe was said to be astonished the next morning when he came out and saw the fortifications that had been put in place in a single night under their nose. I don't have the exact quote, but he said something to the effect of "My God, these fellows have done more in one night than I could get my army to do in three months!" They may have been dirty and undisciplined, but they understood hard work, and that is never a quality to be denigrated or overlooked. Eventually, even though Washington never completely got over his dislike of militia (particularly Massachusetts militia) he did develop a healthy respect for them, and an appreciation of what they could do.
I got off the MBTA at the Park Street station, and followed the crowd over to the other side of the Boston Common. I arrived at approximately 9 o'clock, and I was able to walk up to only about 30 yards away from the stage. I was waiting for an acquaintance of mine to show up, and he finally arrived at around 10 o'clock or so. By that time, the crowd started to swell and I was further back from the stage.
I was interviewed and recorded by a gentleman who said he was from the BBC, and he asked me to describe my sign and tell him about it. My sign had the phrase "If Barack Hussein Obama and his administration were the only thing between CEOs and the pitchforks... who will be between Obama and the American people when he has destroyed our economy?
He asked me if I thought there was anything special about this Tea Party Rally occurring in Boston where the original Boston Tea Party took place in 1773. I had a one-word answer: "Indisputably." I told him that the historic parallels were both apparent and valid, so I thought that the rally taking place today (even though this is only one out of many that take place all over the country) had a special cachet. He seemed like a very reasonable reporter, so I didn't get the impression that my comments were going to be twisted or misconstrued, but given my past experience I recognize that is always a risk. I must admit, there was one part in the interview where I felt myself fumbling a little bit, and that was when I made the references to England... given that he was from the BBC, and I thought "Gee, maybe I should try to word this diplomatically..."
I was also interviewed by a very nice young lady who said she was from France, and wanted to know why I was at the rally today. I told her that I was exercising my rights as a citizen, and that I also wanted people to understand that the people who attend these rallies are not lunatics, crazies or radicals. The people who attend these tea party rallies are common, normal, everyday people who hold down jobs, raise families and participate in the community. A lot of the people that one sees at these events may have never participated in any kind of political rally before. I told her that it was my opinion that many of these people would probably rather not be there, but have felt that things have gone so wrong with profligate spending and ever-increasing taxation that they feel the need to speak up.
Where I was standing, I could neither see the stage, nor hear the speakers. Oddly enough, when I had taken a walk back up the hill to take a picture of the crowd, I could hear just fine. When Sarah Palin came on, I could just barely catch a glimpse of her wearing a red dress, and the only way that we could tell was her speaking was the sound of her voice. So I have to go back on and listen on YouTube or something like that to see what was it she said.
During this time, I began to see the Liberals edging into the crowd and infiltrating. Almost without exception, these were high school/college age people, and for the most part, were not interested in contributing any kind of positive message about their point of view. Their messages were, for the most part derogatory, and snarky.
At one point, a guy came up and stood in front of me. He looked to be in his mid-30s, had a ratty looking goatee, was wearing black pants and a tight black leather jacket with an American flag pin on. He was wearing sunglasses that looked like throwbacks to maybe late 70s or early 80s. They gave him a weird look that was very similar to the Unabomber. He just stood in front of me eyeing my sign without saying anything for about 30 seconds. I did see him staring me down from behind his sunglasses, and before he could say anything he said "Bush did this." I said that while Bush may have been responsible for this or some other things, he didn't grease the skids towards ruin.
Then, the guy began badgering me and generally being a jerk, so I told him "Look, I don't really want to talk to you." and the guy said "What, are you afraid to defend your viewpoint?" And I told him that I simply wasn't interested in carrying on a conversation with an asshole liberal, which is true as far as it goes because he was being a real jerk and getting in my face. What I didn't want to tell him, but was the prime thing weighing heavily on me was that I was carrying a firearm (I have a permit to do so) and I wanted to avoid getting into an altercation at all costs, especially with a douche bag like him. Fortunately, he finally walked away calling me a "f*cking pussy" as he left. I really was relieved to see him go, because I don't think I have ever worked harder to swallow my words and keep my mouth shut. I know to some of you in some other parts of the country, you might not understand why carrying a concealed weapon would weigh so heavily in the content of a conversation, but Massachusetts doesn't make it easy to have a conceal carry permit. (I made the decision to carry when I went to this rally on the basis of the thuggery against the Sarah Palin supporters who were badly beaten down in New Orleans earlier this week... I didn't really expect any trouble, but after considering the issue I decided that if something did happen I would feel a lot worse not being prepared than I would if I was prepared and nothing happened.)
After Sarah Palin got off the stage, the crowd began to thin out a little bit and the Liberals begin pushing in and getting bolder. One guy came over to me with a video camera and asked if he could talk to me, to which I agreed. He asked me what my stand was, and to explain the meaning of my sign, which I did. We went back and forth in a semi-civil way for a little bit, then he said "wouldn't you rather see your tax money that you're so concerned about going to pay for healthcare for your fellow citizens than going to killing kids in Iraq. When he said that, I held my hand and said "Sorry. I don't really want to talk to you anymore." He started to reiterate his point, and I said (trying to remain civil) "Look, you have a particular viewpoint which I find reprehensible, and you're not going to change (referring to his "killing kids" comment about our soldiers in Iraq) so I am really not interested in speaking to you anymore. He actually persisted filming me the whole time and probably tried to reiterate his point, and kept saying "But, don't you think..." to the point where I had to square my body off, look straight into his face and tell him decisively "I don't want to be rude, but I really don't want to talk to you anymore." Does he get the hint? No. "But…but…" "HEY. I AM NOT INTERESTING IN TALKING WITH YOU." And so on.
While this conversation is trailing off, a well-dressed black gentleman came over and began talking with us. He was interested in what we thought people living in poverty should do in this society. I asked him if he ever read any work by Thomas Sowell, because my opinion on the subject is based directly on his work. I told him that in our society, people who start out in low-paying jobs don't stay there, and shouldn't stay there if they wish to get ahead. I pointed out that American history is full of people who started out with absolutely nothing, in poverty and brought themselves up on their own without the help of the government. It is one of the reasons why people still flock to this country from all over the world, because the only boundary to your success is you. It's not like some parts the world to have a permanent underclass or caste system that people are unable to escape from. The guy wasn't interested in hearing this particular point of view, and persisted in asking what we thought people in poverty who can't pay for an education should do. I reiterated that one of the things that makes this country great (or at least has in past) is that people who don't have the means but have the desire can better themselves through their own hard work. This guy was a very reasonable guy, but he wasn't really interested in my point of view, he was interested in validating his point of view.
Somebody else came over and began asking questions about why my sign referred to "Barack Hussein Obama", and why I felt the need to use his middle name. I countered by asking why liberals persisted in referring to Bush as "W". And the guy said "Well, that's his middle name isn't it?" To which I countered "Well, isn't Hussein Obama's middle name?".
In any case, you get the idea. At this point we decided it was time to go, because this was getting tiresome. Talking to liberals has that effect.
All in all, we thought that it was a pretty good day and a pretty good turnout for the bluest town in the bluest state. The crowd was very well behaved (at least on our side) and the only thing that I saw that might've reflected poorly on us was the police escorting a scraggly looking guy out of the crowd who had a sign that said something about Civil War in 2012.
Here are some pics I took today...
Panorama early on before the crowd swelled a bit...
Me and a good CONSERVATIVE friend!
Like that BOSTON flavor...
Hammer, meet nail head.
Unruly Tea Party Radicals
Yes. YES!
A lawyer, I joked with him "Why aren't you working today? Don't you have a job or something?"
A good time overall!