TEA Party at Obama's Healthcare
OK, I have to admit - I have not been able to put up a lot of the over 100 pictures that I took - LCD screens and bright sun do not make a great pairing - and my trackball stopped working and I hate touchpads.
That said, let's see if I can recap:
We got here at about 7am at the Bowl-o-rama here in Portsmouth and waited for a few other folks to show up. Walked on over to the High School and scouted out the area. I'll put up a picture later on from Google Earth where everyone was but suffice it to say that that some of the pro-Obama folks were here a bit earlier already chanting and drumming.
Side note: what's with the drumming and the Left? Pretty much it was counter productive - the drumming drowned out their chanting - go figure
Anyways, we started to set up by driving into the larger of the school lots across from the Mormon church - backed right in and started to unload. While that was happening, a couple of the other groups showed up and started setting up their popups as well. Good thing - about 15 minutes after that, a thunderstorm came through and absolutely drenched us all - my popup covering us (think the ones that you would see at a craft show) got tipped over. It lasted about 45 minutes or so, accompanied with high winds, horizontal rain, and lightening.
Not exactly great weather for a protest and live blogging! Once it passed, it was time to set up. Thankfully, Tate had a Sprint card that allowed me to connect and get on line. The next problem, which we were all hoping for, was that the sun came out. Now, I have a decent laptop - but the screen was no match for it even under the popup. Nothing but hard squinting all the time to see the lettering on the screen, trying to see where the cursor went, and basically slowing stuff down - I put up about 5-10% of what I thought I could during the day - lots of talking, helping out with "communication chores" with other members of the Coalition, and (being an engineer) being asked "Hey, do you have..."
Fortunately, the Suburban came well stocked (no WONDER Obama wants The Beast and other vehicles like it) and was able, with The Most Esteemed Wife's assistance, get most of the requests fulfilled.
Side Note: I am deeply indebted to my wife who mostly tolerates this blogging obsession (and often will help, and sometimes, encourages). Without her, I would not be doing this at all - I DO love my wife!
Overall impression? A scream fest - one side yelling at the other. Did anything get accomplished?
The TEA Party movement, and those that came out today, showed up on their own. I just got through talking to a middle-aged gentleman and his wife - his said in a concerned ("what have I done?") / astonished ("I actually did this!") type of voice: "I have NEVER done anything like this before in my life!" - almost in an apologetic fashion. My reply was "is something wrong?" He said "something is wrong, and I'm having a horrible time trying to figure it out. The problem seems to be is that something is being taken away - and I don't want that to happen.
And that is the takeaway - the message IS that something precious is being taken away from us - our property by those that refuse to earn it, and our freedom with a reduction of choice, and a Government that is ever increasingly intrusive in our lives and limiting our choices.
Ask yourself - WHY should an American government mandate what kind of light bulbs we buy? We are loosing the freedom to chose
Ask yourself - WHY should an American government mandate what kind of cars we can buy via regulations for reasons that we ourselves should make - but have lost the freedom to choose.
Ask yourself - if Government demands that they control healthcare, what will they do to our choices about our own selves?
Who will end up owning here?
There was also a stark difference between the two sides:
The Pro-Obama followers are demanding someone provide for their healthcare needs - regardless of the cost - a lack of self-responsibility and not understanding that their "Right" requires something of someone else.
The Liberty and Individual Freedom follows say "healthcare for that can be done without such Government intervention - but you should have to EARN it yourself and it is NOT right that you take the private property of others to provide for yourself.
This is not over.One side, the "Gimmes".
The other, "Do not use coercive means to take from me to provide for you".
