Posted on 06/30/2009 8:44:00 AM PDT by Signalman
July 4, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., I will be joining other concerned Ventura County citizens on the sidewalks lining the Ventura County Government Center to send a message to Sacramento and Washington. We, too, want the freedom our Founding Fathers fought for.
After the election, and during the first 100 days of the Obama administration, I realized there were some very dramatic changes being made to my country. Creeping socialism, loss of personal rights, a government grab for my pocketbook — all were adding to a sense of dread I couldn’t shake. I wondered whether anyone shared my frustration and growing anger. Then, I heard Rick Santelli screaming into a microphone: “Mr. President, Are you listening? We don’t want to bail out these groups. We don’t want our taxes to be raised. We’re going to have a Tea Party Protest!”
I thought of Thomas Jefferson’s warning, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” I immediately went to the Tea Party Protest’s Web site to see if a demonstration was being planned in Ventura County. Instead of flying to one, I immediately signed up to host a Ventura County Tea Party Protest. I didn’t have any talking points. No politician told me what to say or what to do. I felt compelled to act.
The moment I did, hundreds of people contacted me for more information. They expressed almost the exact same fears about the direction of our country. Suddenly, being a citizen meant more than screaming at my television or writing letters to the editor; I was called to action.
And I wasn’t alone. Our first tea party was a success. We were part of something very special in American history.
Mark Meckler, national spokesman for the Tea Party Patriots, recently said, “On April 15, Tea Party groups held the largest single-day, multicity protest in history with over 1.2 million citizens taking to the streets to express their displeasure with government run amok.”
Since then, many citizens expanded their protests beyond the national events. One group in Houston gathered by the hundreds to protest a visiting Nancy Pelosi’s stance toward the CIA, and to fight her efforts to release photos taken of detainee interrogations. We had been empowered to take a stand and we wanted to make a difference.
Many of those protesting are also against the socialization of medicine. My parents traveled to Cuba recently and were stopped by people who wanted to talk to Americans. The Cubans told them they have “free” healthcare, but that they can’t get in to see a doctor for months. They also said there are not enough prescriptions to go around. This is not the picture Michael Moore’s documentary conveyed. When he took pictures of hospitals in Cuba, he must have had to search to find an angle that didn’t capture any of the broken windows they saw.
We are also extremely concerned with the huge deficit spending that is threatening our future. There’s real anger that Congress members actually voted to implement these expenditures without reading the 2,000 pages that clarified who would receive the money. They didn’t even consider what printing money would do to our security, our deficit and future inflation. It seemed they didn’t even consider whether their actions were constitutional.
They tried to force and shame states into taking unwanted programs. President Barack Obama and other Democratic politicians must have never read what Jefferson wrote, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes; a principle which if acted on would save one half the wars of the world.”
This kind of income distribution can’t be sustained.
As we plan our July 4th Tea Party, be aware that we are a diverse, nonpartisan group of people, but we share a common commitment to work as hard as we can to stop our government from running wild over our rights and freedoms.
We respect the Constitution. It’s clear that President Obama and his administration supporters do not! If you are tired of screaming at your television and feeling powerless, join us at the Fourth of July Tea Party demonstration from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the sidewalks lining the Ventura County Government Center. We don’t care about your gender, race, age or party affiliation. If you want to send a message that you’ve had enough, you are about to find out that you are not alone!
Carla Bonney lives in Ventura. For more information about the July 4 protest, log on to http://www.patriotrevival.com.
Right On! I will be there along with all right thinking Americans. What is happening can not stand! We must peacefully assemble, as is our right in the Constitution, and let our elected leaders know what we think. We will keep notes on who supports the will of the people and remember their names in the coming elections. We are Taxed Enough Already!
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