Tea Parties OBEY the law. We get permits and stay within our permitted area. We clean up after ourselves. Name ONE Tea Party who's member got peppered. YOU CAN'T.
Why? BECAUSE WE RESPECT AND OBEY THE LAW!.
At GOE and later on at all Tea Parties I have attended, the cops were very relaxed with us. I remember at GOE III we were waiting on the sidewalks waiting for the "anti-war" protesters to begin their march (of course they started late...very late). Anywho, I was leaning across a barricade w/ my little American flag waving and an officer came up to me and said "don't do that".
He them told me these marchers would rip the flag from my hand, burn it, stomp on it, etc.....and we all know what would happen if such a thing occurred.
Total RIOT. So many officers came by and chatted w/ us. They said not to take things into our own hands, instead, go get one of them and they will remove the disruptor.
We had one man come into our group w/ his 2-3 year old little girl onto of his shoulders, spouting anti-American crap. Since there was a child involved, we all kept our mouths shut. I went over to a few officers who were on our corner and explained the situation to them.
They came right over and removed this "man" from our presence.
It doesn’t matter what the TP does or doesn’t do, incidents like this give the Dems the excuse to react similarly against the TP.