Today I got two of my buddies to come with me to see what this "tea party" business is all about. We drove up to Norwich, CT, about thirty minutes north of our hometown in coastal Connecticut for the local "2nd District Tea Party Patriots Rally". The three of us, none over the age of 23, were the only three people there who were "counter-protesting".
Mind you, there were only about 100 people there total.
Much more below the fold of my wonderful day.
UPDATE: Here's a picture of DuppyConqueror himself: http://www.facebook.com/...
As soon as we turned onto the street that the riverside park the rally was being held is on, we could already see the Gadsden and American flags. We could see the "honk for freedom" and "how do you like living in a socialist country" signs on the side of the road. We prepared ourselves to walk amongst these people.
Now, the three of us would never claim to be the smartest, or even the most well-informed people when it comes to the craziness that the teabaggers want to debate with you. But we certainly gave it out best shot.
I had thought long and hard about what I wanted my sign to say. My buddy Matt's sign, on one side, said "You Let Jackie Play", alluding to the fact that today is the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. The other side simply said Austin 3:16 (because, well, why not?) and United We Stand. He did that to see the reactions. My sign, after much thought, was a little more provoking. On one said it said "I Apologize For Not Being Racist". On the other side it said " 'I hope ever to see America amongst the foremost leaders of Justice and Liberality' - George Washington". Needless to say, I got a few good reactions.
The first thing we did was walk around and get a feel for the crowd. For the most part, it was older, white people, with a few younger people mixed in. A lot of Gadsden flags. That one I don't get. Do they like the "DONT TREAD ON ME"? Do they think that it somehow reinforces their ridiculous tea-party-ness because it is a flag we flew during the Revolution? Perplexes me. However, back to the crowd. There was the obligatory tables with anti-tax, anti-Obama, anti-Government flyers and books. There was the "mission statement" of the Tea Party on a big poster board. That especially made me chuckle.
Once people figured out that we weren't there to rail against, well, whatever it is they were protesting, we got some attention. One guy started following us around with a sign that "Not With Us" pointing at me. We thought that was plain hilarious considering my sign was talking about how I'm NOT racist. People started to crowd around us to ask us why we were there, and how we could "support this Government". We started talking to some of them, and the consensus we got was that while we were certainly not welcome, they knew they were going to have to tolerate us.
Then the crazies came. One guy, in passing, told me that I was un-American. Before I could ask him why, he ran into the crowd. Another told me I had not right to hold an American flag, because I had not served in the military. I asked him if he had ascertained whether or not everybody else holding American flags (some upside-down) had served in the military. He also ran into the crowd before answering. One person, when I tried to explain how because of HCR I am now able to stay on my parent's insurance because of my pre-existing condition (chronic pancreatitis), LAUGHED IN MY FACE, told me it was a cop-out, told me to get a job, then walked away laughing about my health. Another person who "overhead" that exchange expressed her sympathies, and we began talking. She was incredibly nice and took the time to talk to me calmly. She was the one person there that actually sounded sane. Until she told me she did not believe Obama is an American citizen. I immediately took out my iPhone, Googled "Obama Birth Certificate", and showed it to her. She smiled, and asked why he wouldn't "just come out and say he's an American". I was literally speechless. However, we left on good terms, and she told me she would pray for me. Rosemary, wherever you are, I also pray that you watch something other than Fox News (the last thing she said to me was "watch Glenn Beck!")
One guy kept trying to hand me "bailout money", which was just printed paper resembling American currency. He told me there was "scripture" on the back. I pointed out my Chai (Hebrew for 'Life'), that was clearly visible, and I said no thanks. He said he had seen it, and out of everybody, I was the one that "needed it the most". That made all three of us laugh heartily. He didn't understand why we were laughing at him.
My friends also had an interesting time. One guy walked up to my friend Matt and started screaming about how we had to have a permit to be there. Two minutes later, Matt asked him if he had a permit. He claimed he never told us we needed one, then abruptly walked away. My friend Pat got in a heated argument with a gentleman who is apparently trying to run for Connecticut's 2nd District Congressional Seat. Judging by his lack of knowledge on even the most basic of issues important to Nutmeggers, and his blatant disregard for anything resembling dental care (trust me, it was hard to talk to him for more more than five minutes), I think the 2nd District is safe.
The funniest part of the whole day is when I found the hot-dog vendor. He was black. I stood with him for a while, holding up my sign about racism, while he was smiling ear-to-ear. We talked for a while about how ludicrous all this really is, and how we both knew it was really not about taxes but about class, race, and being selfish. He was probably the smartest person we talked to all day.
We did get in a few arguments. My friend Matt will probably be on the front page of our local paper tomorrow. A photographer for the paper was furiously documenting his discussion with an older female 'bagger. She told Matt that she has two uninsured Grandkids, and Matt promptly asked her why she doesn't want them to be insured. Her answer was because she doesn't want the government to tell her how to deal with her family. He then asked her why she doesn't believe in giving people who need healthcare adequate insurance, and her answer, with a straight face, was "because they're poor". The three of us were literally dumbfounded and speechless.
All in all, today reaffirmed what all three of us already knew. For the most part, Tea Baggers are uninformed, overtly angry, and refuse to listen to anything that even remotely contradicts what they think is "right".
The scariest part of the whole day, which we realized on our ride home, was that when we would ask somebody where they got their information from, where they had heard what they were telling us, almost everybody answered with the same answer: Fox News Channel.