Taking It To The Streets

The protests of the Sixties with vast crowds marching to call for the end of what they saw as an unjust Asian war, using tactics copied from the civil rights movement, brought a new dimension to American politics. And whether you agreed with the cause or not, you couldn't help but acknowledge the impact that these events had on the political establishment. Many, in those days, dismissed the protesters as rowdy hippies, but we were seeing what happens when elected officials fail to read a marked change in public sentiment. Frustration overcame the sending of polite letters to one's elected officials.

Which brings us to the September 12, 2009, March on Washington. This protest is being billed as an effort at defending liberty, and restoring our Constitution by reducing the size and scope of the federal government, especially with respect to the proposals for nationalizing health care. Put another way, In this march, the Tea Party Movement Goes to Capitol Hill.

This march represents a national focus on a movement that has grown up from the town hall meetings held across the country where many elected officials ran into a buzz saw of resistance to the Democratic plans for a socialistic national health care system. In an ironic reversal of roles from the Sixties, the liberal Democrats are labelling the their critics as a small band of right-wing nuts, a characterization that seeks to marginalize the growing breadth and strength of this movement.

An article by Ben Stein entitled, Why We Must March, provides an excellent analysis of the issues at stake, which extend well beyond the health care proposals.

In the last year or so those of us who cherish liberty have been pushed up against a wall. We have watched the federal government bail out the elites on Wall Street for their own bad decisions. We have seen a new president waste a trillion dollars on failed economic ideas and increase our debt to dangerous proportions.

We have heard the soaring rhetoric and watched the media fawn all over this new president who we are told is a new FDR. But we don’t want another FDR. We want our freedom, we want less government in our lives and we want to be left alone.

Which brings us to the present:

Now we come to the heat of August, and the protests and town hall meetings are keeping the pressure on the politicians. As one woman in Pennsylvania told a prominent senator, “You have awakened a sleeping giant.” This month the media and the left will continue to write us off, or malign us, but we will press on. And once the dust settles and the politicians return to Washington, they will think that it is all over. They only wish.

As the politicians return, we will follow them to Washington. We will come from every state, in big cities and small towns, to descend upon the capitol building with one voice. Our message will be a simple one: we demand our freedom. We reject the growth of the federal government and want our republic restored. This is not, and never will be, a socialist nation.

Read the entire ARTICLE. Better yet, send it to your elected officials. This is far from over.

Also, don't forget to sign the ON LINE PETITION