Boise TEA Party

Taxed Enough Already, they say.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what that's like. The only job I've held were I paid much in the way of taxes was a 6-month stint at a sawmill, in between college and the Army. My time on Army active duty was largely tax free, and my drill pay now while going to college doesn't crack the threshold. I can look forward, though, and see that the path on which our national spending is taking us is not the path I want to be on.



So, I went to my first protest. I was hardly alone in my newness- many people that I spoke with had never protested anything before today. One gentleman admitted to protesting in the past, but hastened to reassure me that "it hadn't been this century". Some present were obviously used to making their voices heard- there were a few scattered "No World Order" protesters sporting "9/11 was an inside job" signs who were mostly ignored by the mass majority of anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-deficit sign carriers. Idaho's finest turned out en masse as well- I expected the Boise City and State Police motorcylce policemen, but Nampa officers were present as well, and one officer belong to the 350-mile distant Moscow, ID department.


The crowd marched about a mile and a half along the Boise greenbelt to come out at the Capitol building (currently undergoing renovation) and spread out across the Capitol park to sign patriotic songs and dine on roast pork. The crowd at the park was estimated at 1500-2000 people. UPDATE: The Idaho Press-Tribune says the Boise PD is now estimating the crowd at 2500. Cool.



On my walk home from the park, I stopped in a local coffee shop to get the hippies "take" on the event (which was still ongoing at the time). I stood, drank my coffee, and listened to hipsters saying things like "yeah, there's some economic sense to lower taxes, but protesting the stimulus is just ridiculous". Ok, some irony there... How about this one? "We should have counter-protested or something... like gone out there with signs saying 'McCarthy Was Right!'".

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Sweetheart... McCarthy was the guy who claimed that the American government was riddled with Communists. I don't think "counter-protesting" the anti-spending masses with that little slogan will have quite the effect that you think it will.