Tea Parties Mobilize American Citizens

I attended the DC Tea Party held today in a cold rain at Lafayette Park, across the street from Barack Obama's White House. There was a surge of energy there, as there has been at the at least 700 such events held across the nation today, the annual income tax filing deadline. In the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party of 1773, citizens turned out to protest huge federal spending and prospective tax increases. Look for expansive coverage of Tea Party events around the nation at Pajamas Media, Instapundit and Michelle Malkin.

Glenn Reynolds writes on how this movement has erupted from the grassroots, despite claims to the contrary by some Media and establishment types.

The protests began with bloggers in Seattle, Wash., who organized a demonstration on Feb. 16. As word of this spread, rallies in Denver and Mesa, Ariz., were quickly organized for the next day. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 "rant heard round the world" in which he called for a "Chicago tea party" on July Fourth. The tea-party moniker stuck, but angry taxpayers weren't willing to wait until July. Soon, tea-party protests were appearing in one city after another, drawing at first hundreds, and then thousands, to marches in cities from Orlando to Kansas City to Cincinnati.

As word spread, people got interested in picking a common date for nationwide protests, and decided on today, Tax Day, as the date. As I write this, various Web sites tracking tea parties are predicting anywhere between 300 and 500 protests at cities around the world. A Google Map tracking planned events, maintained at the FreedomWorks.org Web site, shows the United States covered by red circles, with new events being added every day.

Beyond the issues of taxing and spending, today's tea parties (and more to come) are an opportunity for citizens to assert their constitutional right to free expression to engage in debate on the great issues. That debate is alive and well today, and political officeholders in both parties better pay attention.