I had the opportunity of a life time to attend one of the many tea parties that were all over the country on April 15, tax day. For those of you that couldn’t attend, here is my personal observation of one event.

I was lucky to find covered parking. I paid the toll and proceeded to the gathering site. The estimated crowd there was 16,000 people, Americans’ from all walks of life. They were not republicans, democrats and independents, conservative or liberal. We were all just Americans! Telling the Pork-a-Saurus government in Washington D.C., no more spending! These are the “right wing extremists” that Obama’s Department of Homeland Security is calling us.

People were everywhere. The American, state, and other flags were flown. Home made signs ranging from, “don’t tread on me”, “wealth redistribution is stealing”, “I’m tea’d off”, “Congress you’re taxing my patience” dotted the landscape. My two favorites were a person in a pink pig costume holding a sign that reads, “No more taxes, no more bull, pork needs to go, let free market rule”. The #1 sign was worn by a two year old child, “I don’t have a job and I’m already in debt”!

The crowd was energetic and well behaved. I got talking to a few people. ACORN was nowhere near the area. I was told that public reaction to them was, “You know where you can put your acorns”. Ah, so much for intimidating real Americans. They had two Obamatons there with a sign, “Give change a chance”. Most of them were confronted by women who spoke their mind. For me, they can keep the change and pay for it, leave me out of it!

The program started with a prayer for God to help our country, next the pledge of allegiance, then the singing of God bless America. Glenn Beck and Ted Nugent were just a few of the guest speakers at the tea party. The best story was from a woman named Katharine Moreno whose theme was “Immigrant story”. She was from South America and told of her experiences living in a totalitarian régime. She kept using words like, “no opportunity”, “lack of economic freedom” and “socialism”. It struck a big cord with the person next to me and all there.

The most resounding theme came from Ted Nugent. Over and over again he stated the real enemy was not huge spending & tax increases, politicians or big government per say. The biggest enemy of America is apathy. Apathy is the lack of interest in anything or the absence of any wish to do anything. When Americans refuse to be a thorn in government’s side by constantly reminding it to do the will of the people that elected them, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

When was the last time you wrote your federal elected officials? How about even your state officials? Ever called them on the cell phone? Did you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper? Even once consider writing an op-ed? Are you even a member of one grass roots organization? Have you ever donated at least $5 to a cause?

The feeling I experienced at this tea party is probably only a fraction of what the founding fathers experienced in their critical moment in history when they confronted a tyrannical socialist government. We must pick up where these great men of our country’s history left off.

We must do it now. We must do it quickly.