Posted on 04/12/2009 10:49:32 AM PDT by stan_sipple
Nineteen-year-old college student Garrett Kliewer got up Saturday, put on a black tuxedo, black top hat and dark sunglasses, and strolled over to the state Capitol for a protest.
With a cigar hanging out of his mouth, he looked like a Blues Brother, but he actually had intended to look like a capitalist.
“I didn’t wanna make a sign,” he explained.
He was among roughly 150 people who were angry enough about government spending to descend upon the Nebraska capitol for a “tax freedom tea party.” They were there to protest federal stimulus legislation and runaway government spending, but the crowd also had anti-government, keep-your-hands-off-my-guns and anti-illegal immigration elements.
People with posters — ranging from “Tea’d off” to “Give me liberty, not debt”— protested the nation’s mounting debt by singing songs and listening to rousing speeches.
They brought dozens of cans of pork and beans (get it? pork?) which were lined up on the Capitol steps (and will be donated to a food pantry). And they weren’t all conservative Republicans — a rock singer who helped run the event called himself a “Ronald Reagan Democrat.”
It was one of hundreds of such tea parties that have been held nationwide, according to organizer Shelli Dawdy. She’s a mother of three homeschooled children who got involved — via twitter.com — in the first round of tea parties on Feb. 27 out of frustration over the massive spending in the stimulus bill.
Kliewer heard about the tea party through Facebook, an online social networking site. He calls himself an “armchair activist” libertarian who didn’t like either Barack Obama or John McCain. He’s a socially liberal fiscal conservative who knows one thing: “I don’t want a bailout.”
Eleven-year-old Dawson Schrader of Roca held a poster that said: “If debt is the problem, how can it be the solution?”
Asked whether he knew what debt was, he said it’s like when his grandma loans him money, except in this case the government owes big time.
He said he was concerned about the issue but also excited to take photos of the Capitol after the rally.
A man walking by the rally hollered at the protesters to give up their Social Security checks if they don’t like government handouts, which prompted some hollering back.
Another tea party is scheduled for Wednesday, income tax deadline day, at noon in front of the Capitol. Organizers of that tea party plan to leave tea bags by the front door of the Capitol.
Leave to a our media to find someone who is against capitalism at a rally. The rallies yesterday were for those who support government control of our banks. Not you usual tea party folks.
An 11 year old has more brains than folks who have been in DC longer than she's been alive.
Lib journalstar reporter tried make the kid look ignorant, but he showed up the spendaholics
You mean someone actually showed some pictures.
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