Provo Tax Day Tea Party

So I went to the big Tea Party today. It was an interesting experience. The rally was decent sized, they announced an estimate of 500 but the guy said he figured it had to be well over a thousand (which I think was probably more to accurate). I could definitely tell people were coming and going regularly. There were plenty of entertaining signs and interesting speeches. My roommates and I just kept giggling regularly at all of the terrible logic that was thrown out. So many things were just about getting the crowd going and motivated. I honestly think most people weren't listening hardly, they just waited for the proper moments to clap or cheer. I wish I could recall some of the good sings or had pictures of my own to show, but alas, I do not. Here's some photos my sister took:

Some of the random signs and such. "Caesar Obamius you're taxing my patience"

"Tired of paying too much in taxes? Become an Obama cabinet member"

"My piggy bank is not your pork barrel"

I must say it was a pretty entertaining experience, not only because of my satirical nature, but it was just interesting to see people rally like that. One of the funny things was the fact that there was a lot of praise for "our troops" (meaning the actual military) which I can't imagine happens too often at your typical protests. But I think the thing that really disappointed me was when they started praising Glenn Beck. I have voiced before that I am definitely not a Beck fan. Frankly I think he's kind of a moron. I know that sounds awful. I recognize he's a member in full fellowship with my Church and he's highly revered by many different individuals. However, he just seems to do things in such a dumb way. He does a great service for a lot of people and such, but I just don't get his logic in how he does pretty much anything. It's sad really and just a downright shame. I just don't get why he masquerades as a journalist but is so biased in everything he says. I realize there are plenty of others out there that are similar and some that I could go off on more (e.g. Keith Olbermann) but a lot of these individuals at least know how to separate the fact from the opinion. Beck doesn't seem to know how to do this (neither does Olbermann, he would be my liberal "news" guy I'd pick on). Anyway, I don't mean for this to turn into a rant about Beck, but it just really disappointed me because they were so highly touting him and his 9/12 thing.

I don't know how I feel about the whole Tea Party thing and such. I'm glad that individuals are voicing these concerns because my concerns are similar at the very least. I really enjoyed Rick Santelli's tirade when it first occurred. However, I didn't like some of the scope of the protest since it seemed to go to avenues that I didn't enjoy as much. For example, I don't like Obama hating. Sure, I didn't want the guy in office either. However, I'm willing to accept that he's the President and try to work with what we've got. He isn't destroying the world and there are certain things we need to take a stand on, but we'll be okay. Being that kind of extreme (and hating in general) is just going to make you look ignorant. I hope some change can come about from these protests. At the very least I hope consideration for the voice of this portion of the population is given. However, I'm a bit more cynical than that and I don't think this is really going to amount to much of anything. The money will keep pouring out of Washington and I'm not sure there will be nearly the accountability there needs to be. Either way, I'm going to keep my hope.

Here's an article from Slate about the national movement.