All of us at Clan Dillingham exercised our 1st Amendment guarantee to free speech by attending one of the more than 800 Tax Day Tea Parties that took place in cities all around the country on April 15. (Click the photo below to see all the pics from the event.)

Gabriel wonders, “What the heck has Mommy done to my cool hat?”

About 1,500 citizens from around our area gathered for the Greensboro Tea Party to oppose out of control spending at levels of government (with an emphasis on Congress’ TARP bail-out programs and the Obama administration’s multi-trillion dollar stimulus plan), as well as an increasingly intrusive federal government. 

The sign on the left reads, “Impotent: Can’t get the economy up. If my husband had a stimulus package like that, I’d divorce him.” 

Despite what the the lame-stream media has reported, these Tea Parties were true grassroots events, attended by people from all walks of life – everyday folks who are just fed up with pencil-pushing bureaucrats and career politicians confiscating our income and telling us how to live our lives. In fact, the keynote speaker at our rally is a registered Democrat. 

Houston ponders, “Why must this rally take place during nap time?”

Stephen, the boys and I went to the Tea Party with our neighbors (who are from Tax-achussets, as they call their old home state) and their three kids. We also met up with Uncle Greg and Auntie Merdy, and saw three of Stephen’s co-workers.

The Tea Party movement is making its way to Capitol Hill, with two such events already planned for this fall:  

Zeke mans Mommy’s beautiful homemade sign.

• The National Taxpayer Protest, which is being organized by FreedomWorks and the Club For Growth (among others), and is scheduled to take place September 10-12 in our nation’s capital;

• and The National Taxpayer Tea Party, organized by Americans For Prosperity, will be held October 2.

Lots of kids voiced their opposition to the “spendulus” plan.

Stephen and I are also hoping to motivate people to do the homegrown, community-based Tea Party thing again on July 4. But we have a few ideas (peaceful and legal, of course) to make these Independence Day rallies that much more symbolic, raising our voices even higher in support of limited, decentralized government; the U.S. Constitution; low taxation; liberty; and individual rights. We’ll keep you posted on what we come up with.