Attending a Tea Party Rally on Tax Day

On Thursday the grand finale of the "Tea Party Express," as they've been calling it, held a demonstration in Washington, DC, ostensibly protesting taxes, big government, and excess spending, but also evoking some other, rather unrelated issues. I only had time to stay for a few minutes, but I got to talk to a few people and take some pictures. I think I was there at a bad time, because I just saw a guy doing a bizarre stand-up routine that had very little to do with the rally, and the people I was around seemed pretty bewildered by it, though they all broke into wild applause when he ended with "So are we gonna vote these guys out of office?!" and made a reference implying assassinating our incumbents that related to a joke about Lincoln he'd told a few minutes earlier. Here are some photos:

There was a guy taping his sign together. I asked him if I could take a picture, and he said "OK, but the other side is better." I can't imagine why... maybe because this side makes no sense.

Here's the other side. Kind of clever. I chuckled, and the guy appreciated it.

"Liberal Media Bias is Unamerican." I'd imagine this guy sits and watches Fox News all day, so I'm a little bemused as to where he's getting his data on biases.

Holy crap! "Dissent is Patriotic"? Amazing. I bet this guy was around during the protests of the Iraq War too, saying that he was proud of those who were openly critical of our country's involvement there.

 

This van was decked out with glitzy factoids about patriotism and smoking. It was confusing.

This guy is an environmentalist. He was recycling his sign from 1975. I assume. Incidentally, another sign that I failed to capture said "Go Back to Kenya."

There were an awful lot of flags with 13 stars on them. Not sure what the implications are here. But from what I remember about the history of that flag, that means that they want to revert to a country comprised of only liberal, northeastern states, with the exception of Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. I wonder if they know that.

Sleepy tea partiers hitting the van after a long day. Remember, don't tread on them.

I'll actually write some insightful commentary on the Tea Party in the near future.