We are all Tea Partiers now

We are all Tea Partiers now.

Several months ago when I told a colleague at work that I was a member of the local Tea Party in NJ and was going to do a Tax Day speech he looked at me incredulously, bristled and while smirking asked something like, “Aren’t Tea Partiers radical? Aren’t they like way out there?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_sJaOvGSUw

I tried to explain that all the Tea Party members want is to defend America’s founding principles. He kind of looked around uneasily as I told him we are dedicated to promoting personal responsibility, individual liberty, limited government, free markets, strong defense, secure borders and property rights. Those goals are not exactly “way out there” to most Americans.

http://www.njteapartycoalition.org/Home.html

But you see my colleague is the quintessential purveyor of network TV news and local news radio stations. Like most of us, he can be intellectually lazy and all too happy for someone to tell him what to think.

Sadly, a couple of weeks ago he learned his job was being eliminated. As the market collapsed, he came over to my desk, face in hands and said, “It’s horrible out there. I will never get another job. Why doesn’t anyone do anything about this?”

I asked, “What should they do?”

To which he replied, “Why don’t people protest?”

It was my turn to look incredulously at him. I said, “That’s the Tea Party. That’s what the Tea Party does. That’s what we’ve been doing.”

He looked up with a sheepish look on his face and understood. He was always a Tea Partier. He just didn’t know it.

Stop being a sheep and take a stand.

We are all Tea Partiers now.