SML Tea Party '09: TEA Party a Success in SPITE of Weather!

Saturday, April 25, 2009

TEA Party a Success in SPITE of Weather!

Approximately 250 people came - some in strollers and some using canes - in cold, drizzly (early) weather, walked through mud to get there, but enthusiasm was not lacking. (Oddly enough, none of them looked like right-wing extremists and all looked like the real deal - grass roots - not astro-turf types.) Signs of all types - see below - expressed the frustration of attendees with the way our government's spending has run amok. Anyone with pictures to share, please email to smlteaparty@aol.com.

Our eternal thanks to Floyd Enterprises, Inc., especially Gerry Hachmann, Bill Berry, Joe Byron, Don Winter, Olivia Tarvis, Kathie and Phil Floyd. Many thanks to Grand Furniture for allowing the use of their parking lot and to Lee Arnold (Smith Mountain Yacht Club) for use of a much-less-muddy field than our originally planned one. And thanks to David Fallwell for his contribution of bottled water.

Check out news article at:
http://www.smithmountaineagle.com/articles/2009/04/23/news/c%20tea%20party.txt

Partial agenda and information is on the right. If you didn't get to hear it all first-hand, please read all the way to the bottom. It's long, but it's a skinny column! ;)

Double-click on image to enlarge.

Two great voices - Carmel Vaden and Charles Poindexter - singing "God Bless America" at the end of the Tea Party.

My most humble apologies for being so delinquent in posting the results, but I've been preoccupied with family matters.

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TEA Party Info

Useful links:
Senator Mark Warner (D)
Senator Jim Webb (D)
http://perriello.house.gov/

http://franklincountypatriots.net/

Email: SMLTeaParty@aol.com

Partial Agenda for September 4th

Readings: The Declaration, The Preamble, The Powers of Congress (Article II, Section 8)

Cap & Trade - Energy Bill

Health Care Reform - Nationalized Health Care in Canada - Personal Testimony

The Fair Tax

Inspiration from Charles Poindexter

April 14th TEA Party

Smith Mountain Lake TEA Party Declaration

April 14, 2009 read by Ret. B/G Roger Smith

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for like-minded Patriotic Americans to rally as one against the powers that threaten to alter, diminish and destroy this country we love, proper respect for the opinions of our fellow citizens requires that we should clearly state the grievances that compel us to gather at this Tea Party to protest peacefully, but passionately in the tradition of our forefathers whose Boston Tea Partyresonated around the world.

The history of the present government of these United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having the effect of establishing an unacceptable tyranny over the citizens of these states. Let the facts be self-evident and speak for themselves…and let these grievances be heard in the halls of power in 2009, just as they were heard in the palace of Britain’s King George the third, as they thundered forth from the text of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776.

Be it resolved on this 14th day of April, in the year 2009, at the great Smith Mountain Lake Tea Party in a field at Westlake, Virginia, that just as our forefathers at the Boston Tea Party protested tyranny at the hands of the British crown and taxation without representation , we hereby raise our voices against the arrogance and the ruinous policies of our own government…a Government that ignores the will of “we the people”…a government that drowns us in debt…a government that forsakes the free enterprise system that has driven the engine of the greatest economy on earth, in favor of a relentless march toward socialism designed to subvert the worth of the individual and encourage the intrusion of government into all aspects of our lives.

Let the word go forth from this time and place that we are freedom loving Americans who cherish individual liberty, our Constitution and all this nation has stood for over 233 years. We love our country, and we are here to take it back!

Let us hereby resolve that we have had enough of massive government driven bailouts using our money! Stop spending money we do not have! This is not your money, this is our money and we demand you stop the madness! We have had enough of so-called economic stimulus plans that falsely promise we can spend ourselves back to prosperity!

We have had enough of trillion dollar spending schemes being passed without Congress or the people knowing what’s in them. This is taxation without deliberation and we will not tolerate it!

We have had enough of the out of control government spending that is mortgaging our future and threatening our very way of life! We have had enough of both major parties being arrogant and unresponsive to the people they were elected to serve! We have had enough of seeing money taken unfairly from honest hard working Americans through excessive taxation and redistributed to individuals who have not earned the money!

We have had enough of capitalism being targeted as the problem instead of the solution.

We have had enough of government being called the solution, when government is the problem!

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions to our elected officials have been answered only by repeated injury, if, in fact, they have been answered at all. A government so arrogant and unresponsive to its people is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, in general congress assembled, here at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, on this 14th day of April, in the year 2009, do, in the name and by authority of the good people of this Commonwealth and this Nation, solemnly declare that we are a free people, in this free and independent state, and that we have the power to demand that our government cease serving it’s own interests, and whatever political and ideological agendas it may be pursuing, and become the government of the people, by the people, and for the people to which we are entitled as Americans. And that for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Taxes We Pay and Commentary by Jim Miller

Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, CD L license Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Taxes, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon), Gross Receipts Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges, IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Privilege Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service Charge Tax, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),Telephone Federal Excise TaxTelephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Use Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, Workers Compensation Tax

Fair Tax presentation by Paul Greier. For info, go to http://www.fairtax.org/.

A Legal Immigrant's Story by Chris Wheal

I first came to the USA in the early 1970s as a Royal Navy officer on exchange with the US Navy. We loved our time here, so when in 1978 I was offered another exchange tour I jumped at the chance. Near the end of my two-year tour I was lucky enough to be offered a permanent position doing the same job as a civilian contractor which I accepted with alacrity. We became naturalized US citizens in 1987.

My wife had visited England at least once a year, sometimes more (I accompanied her less often owing to pressures of work), but she wanted to live there again for a few years, so when I retired in April 2003 we sold our house in Maryland and went to England where we had bought a rental property in 1997.

I was less keen than she was to live in England again as I was much more aware of the political situation in England, of which she was happily ignorant. England in the early years of the 21st century was a classic example of de Tocqueville's "soft tyranny." It was every bit as bad as I had expected and even my non-political wife eventually came to agree with me, so by the summer of 2005 we had decided to come back to the US and build a retirement home on the land we had bought at Smith Mountain Lake more than twenty years earlier.

Sadly, she died before that could happen, so I sold the house and moved back to America in December 2006. I was so relieved to have escaped Blair's socialist utopia that I came close to kissing the tarmac at Dulles when we landed. I felt as I imagine people must have felt after escaping from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine that within less than two years America would suffer an extraordinary fit of collective insanity and elect a man who appears determined to turn America into a cross between the Soviet Union and Communist China.

I feel doubly betrayed because having escaped one soft tyranny (which has become rapidly worse since I left, under the incompetent ministrations of Gordon Brown), now that America is rushing headlong down the same path there is nowhere else to go -- not that I could or would, anyway: I'm too old and all my family is here. I just weep for what used to be the last great hope of freedom in the world.

I fear that what we saw in November was a bloodless reenactment of the October Revolution, and that it will take as long to get these radical maniacs out of power as it took to get rid of the Soviet Communists. After all, the left has successfully played a long game and now has total control of the entire educational establishment and the media, and also controls most of the judiciary. All they have to do now is to ram through an amnesty bill for illegals, which will give them a permanent and unassailable client state majority, and use some pretext to shut down talk radio and perhaps the internet. This is not tinfoil hat stuff, either -- they've got most of the mechanisms in place and all they have to do is activate them. RIP America.

Slogans for Signs

"Free thinkers for a free market"

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. " - John Galt's Oath

"Bailouts, Stimulus, and Pork. Oh My!"

"Ayn Rand was Right"

"Party Like it's 1773"

"The Answer to 1984 is 1776"

"Don't Stimulate: Liberate"

"Paying My Mortgage, and Yours Too"

"Don't Tread on Me"

“Keep Your Bailout; I’ll Keep My Freedom”

"Born Free, Taxed to Death"

"Give me Liberty, not Debt"

"Robbing Hood: Stealing from the Prosperous to Give to

the Incompetent"

“Pillage and Plunder: At Least the Vikings did it Openly”

"Stop Subsidizing Stupidity"

"Free Markets, Not Free Loaders"

"Read Atlas Shrugged"

"If You Think Health Care is Expensive Now, Wait Until it's Free"

“It’s not a stimulus bill, it’s a strangulation bill."

"Your Mortgage is Not My Problem"

"Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned

here on earth." - Margaret Thatcher

"Repeal the Bailout"

More Slogans . . . Very Good!

178 Slogan Ideas … (updated 2009-04-08)

• $11 Trillion and climbing – Now that’s a lot of change!

• 220 Years to Build the Republic, 3 Months to Destroy It

• 3 Simple Words: WE THE PEOPLE

• Andrew Jackson was Right: No to Bank Nationalization

• Armed and Dangerous … WITH MY VOTE

• Bailouts + Debt = fiscal child abuse

• Born Free, Taxed to Death

• Can we bankrupt the country? YES WE CAN

• CAP (your income) & TRADE (your freedom)

• Cap and Trade = Trap and Raid

• Capitalism is NOT the problem; Ivy League politicians ARE

• Cut Government Spending; Fire a Politician

• Cut Taxes, Not Deals

• D.C. = District of Corruption

• Debt is the problem; how can it be the solution too?

• Dont Bail Out The Boat: FIX THE LEAK

• Don’t Tax Me Bro

• Don’t Tread On Me

• Don’t spread the wealth; spread my work ethic

• Don’t Mortgage my Child’s Future

• Don’t Mortgage my Grandchildren’s Future

• Don’t Mortgage the Future

• Don’t Stimulate … Liberate

• End The Fed

• Equal OPPORTUNITY not Equal Distribution !!!

• Et tu, Sacramento?

• Fair Tax or No Tax

• Fix the Economy, Not Bankrupt OUR Children, Stupid

• Foreclose the White House

• Free Markets, Not Free Loaders!

• Freedom Works – Bailouts Hurt

• Give Us a Break Before WE Are Broken

• Give us liberty; not debt

• GOD Only Requires 10%

• Got Money?? Don’t Let the Government Know

• Green House Gases: Our money being burned in Washington

• High Taxes + Big Government = SLAVERY

• HIGHER WAGES … LESS TAXES … LOWER PRICES

• HONK for Capitalism

• HONK … If I’m paying your mortgage

• HONK … If you don’t like the word TRILLION$

• HONK … If you pay my neighbor’s mortgage

• HONK … If You’re Fed Up With Both Sides of the Aisle

• HONK … If you’re paying my health care

• HONK … If you’re paying my mortgage

• HOPE FOR CHANGE (with pictures of pennies)

• How about a 90% Tax on Congressional Salaries

• How can You not Know Where the Billions of My Dollars Go?

• Human’s First

• I AM an American and I VOTE

• I Am Not Your ATM

• I Voted for Change, Not more Taxation

• I Voted for Obama, Not Debt for Our Children

• I Want My Country Back!

• I Will Keep my Freedom, my Guns, my Money. You Keep THE CHANGE!

• I Will Not Grab My Ankles

• If You Think Health Care is Expensive Now, Wait Until it’s Free

• If you’re not OUTRAGED, you aren’t paying ATTENTION!

• If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying taxes!

• If Your Reps Vote “Tax and Spend”, Kick ‘em Out in 20 10

• I’ll keep my freedom, you keep the Change

• I’ll pay for my house, you pay for yours

• Ignore Your Rights and They WILL Go Away!

• I’m taking back my COUNTRY: One Politician at a Time

• Impeach Congressional Socialists!

• It’s not a stimulus bill, it’s a strangulation bill.

• It’s Your Obligation to Fix The Country

• Join Our Cause: Restore the Republic

• Just say NO … to Socialism

• Keep Your Bailout; I’ll Keep My Freedom

• Keep Your Hands Out of MY Piggybank

• Knowledge is POWER – Ignorance is Weakness!

• Land of the FREE

• Let the markets work

• Let US keep our money; YOU keep the CHANGE

• Liberty is All the Stimulus We Need

• Liberty: A Stimulus We CAN Afford

• Liberty: All the Stimulus WE Need

• Limited Government Under GOD

• Make Way For Liberty

• More Government for The People = Less Freedom of The People

• More Taxes = Less Jobs

• Netizen Warriors, Not Dependent Whiners

• Next Time, Read the Bill Before You Sign It

• No Bonus for Freddie and Fannie Executives

• No More Bailouts

• No Public Money for Private Failure

• No Spending Without Deliberation

• No Spending Without Deliberative Representation

• No Taxation Without Deliberation

• No Taxation Without Deliberative Representation

• No Taxation without Representation!

• No more public money for private failure

• No to American Socialism

• No Way, Not Today, I Can’t Pay … Any More

• O Dow, Where Art Thou

• Obama has a Crisis of Competence

• Obama … Commander and Thief

• Obamanomics: Trickle up poverty

• Obamanomics: Chains You Can Believe In

• Our Congress is a Toxic Asset

• Party Like It’s 1773

• Pay for Your OWN Mortgage

• Politicians Lied and the Economy Died!

• Pork the Other (Red) Meat

• Power corrupts; Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely

• Print Me a Trillion While You’re At It

• READ THE BILL NEXT TIME

• REPEAL THE BAILOUT CONGRESS

• REPEAL THE PORK!

• Read My Lipstick; No More Bailouts

• Read My Lipstick; No New Taxes

• Read my teleprompter: NO MORE BAILOUTS

• Read the 10th Amendment - Power to the States!

• Redistribution just means less for everyone

• Remember Us: WE THE PEOPLE

• Repeal the legislative pork or your bacon is cooked

• Restore the Republic, Revolt Against Socialism

• Revolution is Brewing

• Revolution is Brewing … At the POLLS

• Reward Responsibility, Not Irresponsibility

• R.I.P. Free Market Economy

• S. Save; O. Our; S. Sovereignty

• Save the children – Stop spending their money

• Silence IS Consent

• Sleep? I’ll Sleep When Conservatives Run Congress

• Socialism Kills

• Socialism is Incorrect Change

• Socialism: because everyone else deserves some of WHAT YOU WORKED HARD FOR

• Socialized health is NOT FREE

• Solve Problems; Don’t Sweep Them Under the Table

• Solve Problems; Don’t try to Buy Them

• Stimulate Business, Not Government

• Stop Giving to Charity: Just Send it to Washington

• Stop Punishing Success; Stop Rewarding Failure

• Stop Taxation Without Representation

• Stop The Looting

• Tax and Spend Brings the End

• TEA = Taxed Enough Already

• Tea Party Today: Tar and Feathers Tomorrow

• The Answer is Lower Taxes. Next question?

• The Answer to 2009 is 1776

• The Government is Stealing From ALL OF US

• The Very Small List: Things Government Does Well

• The buck stops in the voting booth

• The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

• This is our pay, so we do have a say!

• Trickle Up Poverty

• Truth, Justice and Real Transparency in Washington

• Two words for our elected officals: VOTING BOOTH

• United States of France

• USA 1776 - 2008: RIP

• Wake Up America, Before Your Liberty is Gone

• Wake Up America, Stop the Insanity!

• Wall Street got a bailout; All I got was the bill

• We Don’t Want No Stinkin Socialism !

• We have had enough; Stop rewarding failure

• We have to be just as vocal as the other side, or nobody’s going to listen to us.

• WE The People: YOU Our Servants

• Welcome to France

• What part of nO don’t you understand?

• What Would Jefferson Do?

• What’s in YOUR wallet? OUR MONEY!!

• When Taxes Rise, Freedom Dies

• Where’s My Bailout?

• Who is in charge? WE ARE!

• Who Will be Left to Bailout the Government?

• Will Work for Lower Taxes

• Work Harder: The Government Needs Your Cash

• Why Should I Pay for YOUR Bad Decisions?

• Yes We Can: Stop the Bailouts and Earmarks!

• You Can’t Borrow to Prosperity

• You Can’t Multiply Wealth by Dividing it

• You Can’t Spend Your Way Out of Debt

• Your Mortgage is NOT My Problem

• You ONLY have the Rights You are Willing to Fight For

• Your Pork Broke My Piggy Bank

Taxes We Pay - more fodder for creative signs!*

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

CD L license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Dog License Tax

Excise Taxes

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Franchise Tax

Fuel Permit Tax

Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)

Gross Receipts Tax

Hospitality Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges

IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Meal Tax

Medicare Tax

Personal Property Tax

Privilege Tax

Personal Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Service Charge Tax

Social Security Tax

Road Usage Tax

Sales Tax

Recreational Vehicle Tax

School Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone Federal Excise Tax

Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax

Telephone Federal

State and Local Surcharge Taxes

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax

Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax

Telephone State and Local Tax

Telephone Usage Charge Tax

Use Tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft Registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

* I cannot confirm that all of these are actual taxes, so if you question one, don't use if for a sign without verification.

SML Tea Party '09

Saturday, April 25, 2009

TEA Party a Success in SPITE of Weather!

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TEA Party Info

Tea Party Info