The Morristown Tea Party held its planned Labor Day rally on the Morristown Green today, with speakers holding forth on themes emphasizing individual liberty and State sovereignty.
About a thousand people swarmed the Green, took advantage of various activities, bought reservations for the upcoming second annual 9/12 March on Washington, and listened to several speakers as they expounded on a variety of subjects. Most of the crowd were elderly, in keeping with the original base of the Tea Party movement. However, several young people worked the crowd to announce a new initiative, called Young Patriots (listed here on Facebook), essentially a Tea Party-associated youth group. By answering the question of whether the Tea Party movement can succeed in attracting the next generation of voters, this could be the most significant development yet. Tea Party members have often brought their children and grandchildren to their events, but Young Patriots represents something new: young people embracing the movement on their own initiative.
The Rev. Andrew Paton, in delivering the invocation for the event, gave the crowd a Biblical historical perspective. He quoted from 1 Samuel 8:10-18, in which Judge (and Prophet) Samuel warned the people of ancient Israel of the consequences of moving away from their prior model of government by a quasi-judicial officer and toward a conventional monarchy, like those of the nations whose territories surrounded them. The message was meant to be plain: the United STates of America was never meant to be like other nations, especially the largely socialistic nations of Europe, and for the USA to emulate those nations today would be just as unwise as it was for Israel to have an absolute king.
Activist Doug Hartlove was also on hand to promote his FairTax alternative to conventional income taxation. He also took time to mention certain New Jersey Congressional candidates, among them Anna C. Little in the 6th District, who have consistently advocated for the FairTax program. This program would replace all current corporate and individual income taxes with a consumption tax (at a currently proposed rate of 23 percent) combined with calculated remissions to individuals and households of the amount of tax that would be assessed on "poverty level expenditures."
Former Sheriff Richard Mack of Graham County, Arizona, discussed the implications of his precedent-setting lawsuit, Mack v. United States, challenging the Constitutionality of the "Brady Bill" requiring all States to register handguns. Eventually the US Supreme Court, in a related lawsuit (Printz v. United States, filed by Mack's fellow sheriff Jay Printz of Ravalli County, Montana), ruled 5-4 that the Brady Bill was unconstitutional on the grounds of infringement of the "dual sovereignty" that States enjoy. Mack told his listeners that these cases provide precedents directly relevant to the current raft of lawsuits against the federal government over the healthcare-reform bill, which violate State sovereignty exactly as the Brady Bill did and would likely be ruled unconstitutional on the same grounds. Mack further accused the mainstream media of deliberately failing to mention these precedents in its current coverage of the healthcare bill and the lawsuits by more than twenty State attorneys general. (George W. Bush replaced two of the Justices in the original majority with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel J. Alito. The other three majority Justices, including "swing Justice" Anthony Kennedy, still sit on the court, and so the balance would be essentially unchanged.)
No counterdemonstrators appeared at the rally.
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Comments
The "Fair Tax" is a great idea, if you want to have an income tax AND the consumption tax.
I mean, I haven't read a proposed Fair Tax that abolishes the 16th Amendment. Without doiig that you can bet we'll end up with both.
But it's great to see younger people getting behind the idea of limited government. If only they'd vote that way too.
Those young people will, and they'll tell their friends. This group is actually a group of high-school students, so they might not be old enough to vote. Yet.
About the FairTax: you forgot to click through to the site. Abolishing the income tax is part of the equation. I would imagine that the head of Americans for Fair Taxation would love to see a repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment and a return to the idea that direct taxes are to be apportioned by population. FairTax would, of course, be an indirect tax.
Funny story about the Tea Party movement at http://newspile.weebly.com/
Cute. But as to that story about the Reflecting Pool, I was there. Those photographs in that slideshow (about the Glenn Beck rally) are mine--just as the photos in the slideshow above are mine. So don't say, or let anyone tell you, that the crowds did not show up.
Now if you're talking about "little girl's tea parties," remember this: Young Patriots is real, too.
As you will read in my recent article, groups are getting very edgy and some are getting too militant these days. Slanderous, name calling, book burning disrespect is raging. Nice picture shots Terry.
God bless and continue to protect America, have mercy on us all. I'm saddened by all the political bantor these days. I'll have an update on Florida next week. Keep us in your prayers.
examiner.com/christian-living-in-jacksonville/victoria-poller
The tea party is a kookfest. Their numbers are dwindling nationwide as reflected by the fewer and fewer kooks that come out each time Luzzi thows another kookfest on the Green. Hurlbut is a kook as well.
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