The Happiest Angry Mob

When you’re losing in sports or politics, it can’t hurt to see what the winning team is doing. So what are they doing? Protesting.

We should get off our “high ideals” and mount massive protest marches. After all, the Socialist Workers Party can lead tens of thousands against America defending herself.

So why can’t the tens of millions who love the Constitution and our founding principles inspire two million ex-military people, bikers, athletes, conservative Christians, and like-minded “average Americans” to march and shout in a grand circle around the Capitol in D.C, banging pots and pans and yelling, “Hey hey , ho ho, Socialism’s gotta go! If our servants in the Congress cower with fear that we might charge the building, so much the better. Not that we would, but it wouldn’t hurt if they thought we might.

I wrote that (with some now updated editing) six years ago, and though there’s always hope, I was never really sure we’d bring it off.

But this past Saturday, we did.

All of us, even those who couldn’t go to Washington but turned out at the various rallies here in Brevard, were part of the first certain evidence that the sleeping giant is awake now and filled with a terrible resolve.

When we arrived at Freedom Plaza, 9AM, the crowd was already huge. The atmosphere was electric with an energy that had to be felt. But it was not angry, it was the energy of a ballplayer who has sat on the bench for too long and now has the chance to show what he can do, and is determined to make the most of it.

Very few of the signs people carried were directed at the President, despite the accusations of the paleo-media, who have opined that the rally was about the color of his skin.

Most of them were about the corruption of our Constitutional Republic by the men and women in Washington. Maybe more than anything they called for returning to the wisdom of our founders.

Some called for term limits. Others stated the Constitutional idea that “the government is not your nanny”. Some children had signs that said “keep your hands off my piggy bank”.

And my favorite: a reference to the Revolutionary war conflict between the patriots and the Tories (supporters of the King) and the treatment sometimes given to the Tories. The hand written signs said “TEA today, TAR tomorrow.

They came in all ages and colors and stations in life. They were white, black, Hispanic and Asian. One of the men I spoke with was a new citizen from Indonesia.

They were Doctors, ex-military, bikers, an history teacher, students and from the looks of them every other trade you could imagine.

Those of us who are more “seasoned citizens” can rest a little easier because the crowd was filled with men and women in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. They will carry on the struggle for freedom in the years ahead and they are every bit as committed to freedom and limited government as we have been. They are in the fight for the long haul.

The most touching of all to me was a 90 year old man, frail and determined, who had to be helped from time to time by his grandsons, themselves in their 50s.

He had waited for this outpouring of patriotism for over fifty years and walked all the way from the Plaza to the Capitol. His grandson’s eyes welled with pride and tears as they talked about him.

The Capitol and DC police I talked to said it was the most well-behaved crowd they’d ever seen and by the way, unlike the crowds that have attended other demonstrations, left the grounds as clean as they found it.

Whether the March was a half million, a million or two million, one thing is certain, all who came will return to their homes all over this great land as prophets for the cause of freedom and limited government.

Saturday was just the beginning.