Reason.tv: What We Saw at the D.C. Tea Party

 

On Friday, February 27, John O'Hara of the Heartland Institute and JP Freire of The American Spectator organized a Washington, D.C. tea party to protest the runaway spending and tax hikes recently unveiled as part of Barack Obama's stimulus package and fiscal year 2010 budget.

Reason.tv's Dan Hayes was on the scene, talking with the organizers and participants about the state of the economy and how the government should respond to the recession.

Comments

[Joe_D]

Damnit!, I spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out the clever joke in "What We Sat at the DC Tea Party" (on the front page). Damn typos.

[Tom Johnson]

Please email us with an email address that we can forward something to that is too lengthy for this comment box.

[Joe_D]

"Please email us with an email address that we can forward something to that is too lengthy for this comment box."

Is this some form of super-trolling?

[P Brooks]

What We Saw at the D.C. Tea Party

A bunch of useless idiots?

[Rosa Luxemborg]

talking with the organizers and participants

All the "Tea Parties" are organized by the Ultra-Right Wing Koch family in an attempt to destroy America.Do you pay your so-called "participants"?

[BDB]

"A bunch of useless idiots?"

That's any protest.

This is like ANSWER without the entertainment value. Come on, get some paper mache puppets next time!

[BDB]

Koch family

The guy who makes Sam Adams beer organized this? What?

[Warren]

Reason.tv: What We Sat at the D.C. Tea Party

Was it on Saturday? Did you Saw anything?

[Silver]

Funny! Thats as fired up as the protesters get - so... REASONABLE! They must not care that much or they would be more emotional!

[Derrick]

I still can't bring myself to associate with Republicans.

[Max Rosett]

I'm always a bit skeptical of protests myself. I mean, does anyone really care about Code Pink? But watching the video of these protesters does me good. Apparently there are still some people who don't want the government in every aspect of their lives, even if it means enduring a painful recession.

[mantooth]

Sadly, the protest broke up earlier than expected when an Army recruiter walked through the crowd on his way to his car and spooked the Young Republicans.

[Liberty Lover]

Good stuff, especially Street Fighting Man as the background music.

[Orange Line Special]

Oddly enough, Playboy seems to have pulled their article exposing the links between the funders of various "libertarian" groups (aka, "the Kochtopus") and the "tea parties". However, you can see a discussion here with more links here. I noted something else interesting a week before the Playboy article.

As for the video, I don't have sound but I'm sure the things they were saying are as stupid as I'd imagine, especially the loon in the period costume.

What's funny about those loons is that they don't seem to know about that "petitioning the government for redress of grievances" thing but instead think dressing up like fools and waving signs with extremely selfish and - dare I say it - "mean-spirited" slogans are going to carry the day.

And, sites like Reason cheer the fools on rather than encouraging them to do something effective.

[Tanker J.D.]

This internacine bickering is why the Libertarian movement doesn't get anywhwere. Here is a group of people (including me), who like me, may have never attended a political rally before in their lives, who then turned out to support classical liberty. Instead of support, all that commenters here can do is snark about the GOP. Well, fine, you so-called Libertarians enthralled with the current batch of Dems, live in Obamaland! You still won't get your holy grails of national recognition of gay marriage, or decriminalization of Pot. You probably won't even get all troops out of Iraq, and those that do redeploy will likely go to Afganistan. But you will get the worst evisceration of economic liberty since the New Deal as a result of your childish spite.

What, you think you've stuck it to the bogeymen of the Christian Conservative and the "chickenhawks" by voting for biggest socialist President in U.S. history!? Sophmoric in the extreme!

And so you're bitter about Iraq and the stated justifications for the invasion? O.k., but as a result, there is now an Democratic Arab state in the Middle East, which is exactly one more than the zero that were there before. You think that "Reasonable" people would at least be able to recognize that. Reasonable people might also recognize that the deficeits incurred by the Iraq war are dwarfed by this tsunami of pork that Obama, Reid & Pelosi are dumping on us now.

You object to the past waterboarding? Fine. Put it in perspective, though. The technique was repudiated long before The One was even a serious candidate; and the CIA has still asked for a potential waiver to Obama's executive order. Consider, too, the exceedingly limited number of circumstances under which it actually occurred. Finally, contemplate the "ticking timb bomb" scenarios, and ask yourself under what circumstances is it ever o.k. to coerce a prisoner in the interest of preventing attacks against liberty itself.

Guantanamo Bay won't close, and if it does, the internees will simply be re-located. Furthermore, are a few dozen internees worth trillions in government debt programs!?

So, go ahead, mock the liberty-minded folks that will find common ground with social conservatives, but then live with your stupid false saviour. I will say this at least about Christian conservatives--they don't look to a politician for their Messiah; they already have theirs.

[R C Dean]

I still can't bring myself to associate with Republicans.

Don't feel bad, Derrick, I feel the same way about Democrats. I didn't use to, but the Obamanauts and their catastrophically inept, cynical, ethically inert President put me over the brink.

[Coma]

My guess is we will be seeing lots more of these types of things as more people wake up to what is gong on in reality. People are starting to not fall for the "Fear this" stories that DC is getting better at "producing"

Derrick said "I still can't bring myself to associate with Republicans."

I did not hear one person say what party they were for or against...They all seemed too against the way OUR money is going to be spent (read "redistributed wealth")..And Libertarians are pro business but they are far from Republicans. Exactly how did you ever get past 9th grade.....Derrick?

The way I see it the Republicans are old school Democrats and the Democrats are just plain old socialists now. Don't think so?..."Wake up little sheep it's time for the slaughter!"

These Fascism-Socialistic-Communistic loving Democratic party folks that people like you voted into office are going to steal every last penny you have and kiss you on the head while they pat you on the ass...."Dont worry you will be safe"...."my child"....

The money that is getting spent for the "Bail-out" really just helps their friends to get richer because the money will keep flowing and it is coming out of your pocket!

Make no mistake about it, and they want to own the banks too...wonder why?

He who controls all the money wins!

[Right Wing Realist]

A buncha crazies?

[Brian G.]

People finally start rallying for liberty, and you morons disparage them. This is why the libertarian party is such a joke.

[MlR]

The way I see it the Republicans are old school Democrats and the Democrats are just plain old socialists now. Don't think so?..."Wake up little sheep it's time for the slaughter!"

Bingo.

[mtheado]

Paul Revere relied on his resourcefulness as a craftsman, a manufacturer, and head of a large household during tremendously difficult times. Above all, he was a practical man, focused on the tasks at hand. Sam Adams was quite the opposite: heady, philosophical, idealizing, even Machiavellian. How would either of these two respond to the Stimulus Package? They saw problematic banking issues in their own day, in the years before the Revolution, and they also dealt with consumer vs merchant issues (even those dictated by the British monarchy) of the sort that led to the original Tea Party. I am a life-long Democrat, and when I watched Obama's speech to Congress last week, I heard in his measured cadences and patient eloquence the voice of the President I have waited my whole life for. Someone to be inspired by who speaks for me. But that doesn't mean that I support whole-heartedly the Stimulus Package. For now, I will have faith that it was the best option for the time, given the circumstances. I appreciate that some of the folks interviewed at the protest believe that government should stay out of the way, and the people will work the capitalist system until it corrects. Well, I think that's what we were doing, and it's that which has made government intervention necessary. Let's hope it is the right approach.

[ImJustSayin]

There needs to be a REAL organized "Million Pissed-Off American" march on Washington. I didn't hear one person mention the outrageous rape and plunder going on with the Bailouts. Investors are speaking out with plummeting stocks.....Americans need to be marching on Washington with pitchforks. Credit card interest rates are sky-high with no regulation in sight (see http://www.fuckedupblog.com) and Americans are still cowaring in the dark in front of their boob-tubes waiting for "somebody else" to fix the problem so they can go back to shopping aimlessly at Walmart and filling up their SUVs.

The only dumb Americans are the one's that aren't speaking up against these travesties against working-class America.

[faithkills]

"I still can't bring myself to associate with Republicans."

You better start. Rothbard notwithstanding, they are our allies now against what's become a frighteningly real threat of collectivist statism.

There is no social liberty without economic liberty. Fascism comes from the left now, because that's the easiest path for it.

If I'm proven wrong and one day the xtian right tries to enact a de facto theocracy I'll be against them. But that's just not politically viable anymore. If you want massive top down control you come from the left.

For some reason the progressives who mock blind belief in a beneficent god seem perfectly willing to have blind belief in a beneficent politician.

Until we can actually get our political act together, it's our duty at minimum, to obstruct the wildest swings of the pendulum.

[Halb]

Social liberty in the UK post 2nd world war came from the Labour party and economic control and nationalisation, which disproves "There is no social liberty without economic liberty"

mtheado, I think yours is the most balanced answer here.

[faithkills]

"Social liberty in the UK post 2nd world war came from the Labour party and economic control
which disproves "There is no social liberty without economic liberty""

Logical fail. That's not a counterexample to the assertion.

Still this will be interesting. What social liberty was gained in the UK post WW2? Via what mechanism of the labor party?

How free are you if you have not the liberty to choose how you utilize the results of your past effort?

[ashok]

Thank you for sharing this - what a contrast with the people throwing shoes at the inflatable George Bush.

Yes, there were a lot of talking points repeated to the point of "say something real." But judging from what you showed, quite a few people could articulate specific reasons why cutting spending would work, and even why it is just - if you're cutting spending in your household, why shouldn't the gov't? The clips you showed even began to articulate an argument for the other side, that job losses are traumatic and that none of these protests coincides with an easy moralism. That was conspicuously absent from the Bush protests, which seemed to be some victory of good vs. evil. (Apparently "good" = $1.1 trillion spending bills and $3.55 trillion budgets).

[missing]

"Fascism comes from the left now, because that's the easiest path for it."

faithkills, the republicans are as fascist as the democrats. Are you misinformed, or are you trying to spread lies ? There's no difference between 'left' and 'right'. Bush was as interventionist and left-wing as obama is.

[faithkills]

"faithkills, the republicans are as fascist as the democrats. Are you misinformed, or are you trying to spread lies ?"

Since I never stated otherwise I'll let you beat up your own straw man unimpeded.

"Bush was as interventionist and left-wing as obama is."

Agreed.

"There's no difference between 'left' and 'right'."

There is indeed a difference. The difference is right now the left is a dire threat. Of course Bush presided over creeping collectivism, and I was against it. Obama isn't creeping, he's charging. This is a main reason by the negative reaction along with the fact that most people had no idea who Obama really is, and like Jim Cramer, are waking up from their MSM induced soma coma to find that they elected Hugo Chavez.

To the koolaid drinkers.. is it sinking in yet? His first plan of action was not to get rid of the patriot act. In fact there's no mention of it. There's no talk about legalizing same sex marriage. Obama has no interest in liberty.

He's destroying the economy, which will provide him a nice opportunity to expand government power even more.