Signs Of The Times

Tomorrow is Tax Day, or as it’s becoming known in conservative circles, Tea Party Day. Nobody’s in charge, in spite of what some people desperately want to believe. I organized a protest on a local issue that grew in the space of a week to a website and mailing list of thousands of people. We were organizing bus service from all over the state to help people get to the protest, conducting TV, radio and print interviews daily, maintaining the site and organizing teams of people to do various tasks. It was a huge undertaking, and I took all the help I could get. The fact that some well-known conservative groups have jumped on the tea party bandwagon, helped guide, promote and publicize the efforts of people at the local level, and made a few bucks doing so doesn’t mean this movement isn’t genuine.

As outrageous as Bush’s $700 billion bank bailout was, as infuriating as Obama’s $3.27 trillion nonstimulus is, consider that the public debt has been growing for over 50 years. The Tea Party movement isn’t really about Republicans vs. Democrats. It’s about out of control government. It’s about promoting understanding of the fact that the government doesn’t spend a dime that it didn’t first take from a citizen who earned it, and a demand that they quit blowing it on stupid things.

One easy way to know that this is a real grassroots movement will be to look at the signs used in protests so far, and at the ones tomorrow. No one on the right is paying protesters to show up, and we’re unlikely to see groups carrying a lot of professionally printed signs like those distributed by ANSWER at anti-war rallies. Instead, we’ll have homemade classics like these and this.

If you going to a tea party, what are you going to put on your sign? Here’s some suggestions I’ve seen on various websites – post yours in the comments!

Liberty: All the stimulus we need
Legalize capitalism.
Stimulus: the audacity of dopes
Give me liberty, not debt
Don’t stimulate… liberate
Born free, taxed to death
Cut taxes, not deals
Taxed Enough Already
Free Markets, Not Free Loaders
I am not your ATM
You Can’t Borrow Prosperity
Washington: You have run out of our money

Cross-posted from The Greenroom