Tea Parties: Rumors of Our Death Have Been...

Calling all Tea Parties: Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated. If anybody out there used to belong to a Tea Party group that has disbanded, please read Lloyd Marcus's pep talk here:

http://www.lloydmarcus.com/?p=3361&cpage=1

Then visit Matt Kibbe's ambitious site, www.freedomconnector.com. There's no charge for using this social web site. You will be asked for your zip code. This will be used to help you find fiscal conservatives who live near you, in your town or city neighborhood if possible, so it will be possible to meet in real life if that's important to any of you. Browse around, post a few thoughts on recent news, read a few other people's comments on recent news, and connect with people who seem congenial. Presto, you are a Tea Party again.

In order to preserve our identity as a true grassroots movement organized mostly by amateurs, we have no way of screening out people who are not serious except watching what they say and do. It's possible that some readers may have joined Tea Parties organized by people who weren't serious, or weren't competent organizers, or weren't fully competent period. These organizations have a natural tendency to die early.

This web site represents one small, extremely loosely organized Tea Party that has so far connected only in cyberspace. The main group activity of the Conservative Civil Libertarians is reading this blog. There are no dues. There have been no meetings, so far, although if anyone wants to have a meeting we can have one. Individual activities can include anything that does not materially harm others, especially doing a job, operating a business, and practicing your religion; voting, rallying, bill reading, writing letters, and campaigning for candidates are also recommended, but not required.

Although the Freedom Connector page shows only two official alliances with other Tea Parties on that site, regular readers already know we have a few others. Lloyd Marcus is one of several writers we "met" at the Noisy Room web site, which links a couple dozen fiscal conservatives' blogs, web sites, and organizations. If you're looking for online chat, there's an active, chatty group organized around Bart DePalma's book, Never Allow a Crisis to Go to Waste. We've become informed about "Agenda 21" by Karen Bracken at www.americadontforget.com. In Virginia, other active Tea Parties that send us information include www.virginiateapartypatriots.com and www.danvillepatriots.com. The biggest (and therefore, sometimes, inevitably the most annoying) Tea Party e-magazine is www.theblaze.com, a daily sponsored by Glenn Beck and written by several of his e-friends. Todd Cefaratti's Tea Party News Network sends out e-mails headed "The Tea Party." One of many...but it was the one that connected us with all those other sources, and more.

There is no excuse, Gentle Readers. If you don't want to pay more and more taxes to fund more and more boondoggles, you are Taxed Enough Already and you might as well identify with one (or more) Tea Parties. If you really don't feel you fit into any of them, even the supremely low-pressure Conservative Civil Libertarians, you'll just have to organize your own.