Raleigh NC, Patriot Rally Report

me | February 15, 2003 | mykdsmom

[mykdsmom]

It's a GREAT day for a FReep. We had a fantastic turnout at our rally to support our troops. At our largest point we had 100 people. Not bad for having 5 days to organize.

Suprisingly most of the people that showed up were not FReepers but rather people that had seen our rally mentioned in the newspaper and/or heard it on TV. All free advertising that didn't cost us a dime. One attendee is in advertising for a local paper that the peace rally advertised in. The peace people took out 2 full page ads to promote their rally. She informed us that the going rate for one full page ad is $10,000. Wonder where that money came from?

We will be having a lot of new FReepers signing up after this rally based on the responses that we got from people.

FReepers that were there were Constitution Day, wimpycat and hubby, overtaxed, blackbag, Helms, ncweaver, Jimidallas, dstarr, JNW74, shaunnc, shapka, mattwilloughby and daughter, GOP Pat, mykdsmom. I apologize if I left anyone out, I really tried to talk to everyone to find out if they were FReepers or not.

dstarr and her veteran hubby came up from Fayetteville, we had 2 women come all the way from Wilmington which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive away. They just lurk on FR but hopefully they will sign up.

One father came and brought several children that are all homeschooled. This rally was part of teaching them about their country and the freedoms they enjoy by living here. I can't think of a better way to do it.

I was pleased to see the number of young college age students on our side. It really gives me hope for our future generation.

We thanked the police officers that were there and they thanked us in return for showing up. They were definately on our side. I asked one officer for an estimate of how many showed up on the pro-peace side. He claimed they were saying 7,000 but he estimated closer to 2000-3000 total. Only one arrest though so everyone was fairly well behaved.

We got the bull-horns fired up and had some fairly good hearted banter back and forth across the street.

I will post the pictures that I took and welcome anyone to add to this because I'm sure I left some things out.

MKM

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Sorry could not come Saturday. Was primed and ready to attend and got call of health emergency with my dad. Am embarrassed I couldn't go because I was ready and was so impressed when saw everyone make such a good showing - TV14 did the best report. Such a splendid showing! Congratulations to all who participated. The number one impression I got from the TV14 news report: The "prowar" - ha - Pro - Americans were RIGHTEOUS and GREAT - the Anti-war (ha - anti-Americans) were mostly 20 something hippie wannabes who have no idea what is going on in the real world. I also got the distinct impression that these antiwar protestors were truly taken aback by the presence of pro-Americans such as yourselves showing up with such a goodly number and righteous behavior!!

God bless each of you! Such a shame WRALTV is so biased. All they showed was all the millions of anti-American/anti-Bush protestors around the world. Not a hint of the pro-Americans in our own capitol area taking a stand for America!!!! WRAL makes me sick. I would not watch it at all except for Greg Fischel.

[Subsonic]

Yes, that would be me. When the circus comes to town, I don't wanna miss the show. It was so hard not to just start laughing hysterically at times! The Lib's have no idea how ridiculous they are. No matter what their age, its like they never grow old and wise. When that "Heavens Gate" cult in Commiefornia all committed suicide a few years back believing that they would then ride on a comet, I'm suprised many of saturdays people didn't go with!
Have you folks ever thought of involving other groups like Grassroots or letting the district NRA guy know about counter protest plans? Maybe the local VFW too. If there is ever a sequel to this show it would boost turnout. Although at 40-to-1 I still liked our odds!
Sub

[ShaunNC]

MKM, thanks for the report and for all the great comments on the rally. I was there, with my kids, and found it to be a very uplifting experience.

As a veteran, dad, and American, I appreciated the many well thought out commentaries displayed by our group as well as the priviledge of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with patriots. I saw mention of one the anti-war pukes using that actual expression (shoulder-to-shoulder) in a quoted remark referring, I belive, to the solidarity of the peacenik movement, and it made me laugh (as did many of their other mindless posters). I wonder if the speaker had any idea that this expression is derived from the position of soldiers who are marching into battle - shoulder-to-shoulder.

Regardless of all the "hype" given to the anti-war pukes, we know that it is much harder to stand for what is right, than take the easier path that has been given to those of us who live in this great country. Here's a quick piece of Mark Steyn's comments on the matter:

"The "peace" marches? Oh, I've nothing to say. Can't improve on Tony Blair, looking out of his window and observing: "If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started."

In other words, if it's a numbers game, those are the ones that matter.

God bless everyone who remains steadfast in their support of our country and God bless the USA!