Tea Party America: Protesting Big Government on Independence Day

Via Glenn Reynolds, an estimated 5,000 people attended an anti-tax rally in Marietta, Georgia today:

Another photo at the link.

Also, from the Washington Times, "July 4 Tea Parties: Protesting Big Government on Independence Day":

The tea party movement has become more than a one-time tax protest. The grass-roots political crusade is growing and expanding. As "tea party" organizer Candace E. Salima notes on our facing page, more than 1,300 parties are scheduled nationwide to mark the Fourth of July. This popular uprising against oppressive big government is in the best tradition of the American independence movement that we are celebrating this weekend.

The tea parties are a genuine expression of the American democratic spirit. The April round of tea parties - held to protest tax day - was studiously ignored by President Obama and ridiculed by liberal critics, no doubt in hopes the movement would go away. But the party keeps on rolling.

Like the contemporary movement, the 1773 Boston Tea Party was not just about taxes. The original party started when the bankrupt British East India Co. was given a 1.4 million pound bailout by the British Parliament and granted a tea monopoly over the Americas to help them shed their "troubled assets." Politically well-connected consignees were given exclusive rights to sell the tea and were set to drive local merchants out of business. When the first tea ship sailed into Boston Harbor, a flyer was posted declaring "the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of Tyranny, stares you in the face."

More at the link.

Plus, the San Francisco Chronicle, "Anti-tax Tea Party Protests Planned for Fourth."

See also, Midnight Blue, "Tea Party 3 - Independence Hall - July 4th."