The Marion County Republican Women signed up new members to the Tea Party.
By Chloe Oliver
Normally, there is a sleepy atmosphere on Saturday mornings at the Marion County Courthouse in Columbia. The quiet was broken on Saturday morning as attendees of the Columbia Tea Party Rally gathered on the the front lawn of the courthouse in anticipation of the slated speakers.
Organizers of the rally, Donna Fite and Kelly Roberts, stated that the event is a way for citizens to voice concerns about political issues and seek solutions on pending and passed legislation.
Representatives of Marion County Republican Women were on hand to help those interested in becoming members of the Tea Party, 15th Judicial District Attorney Hal Kittrell gave copies of the Bill of Rights to the crowd, and Farm Bureau’s eminent domain petition was available for those interested in signing.
Fite welcomed the crowd of about 100 and gave a reading of The Star Spangled Banner, the Rev. Ken Shinn of Columbia offered the invocation and Lyman Fite led the crowd in The Pledge of Allegiance.
With the courthouse’s American flag waving proudly above, Dan Lindsey of Hattiesburg’s 912 Group introduced the first speaker, who was 4th Congressional District Libertarian candidate Tim Hampton of Hattiesburg. Hampton stated that he believes Congress is out of control and citizens need to exercise their rights to get rid of those in office.
Next, former candidate for the 4th Congressional District Republican Joe Tegerdine of Petal echoed the thought of citizen responsibility by saying, “We need to start doing our jobs as voters…and put America back on the path to spiritual and economic success.”
Speaker Ron Vincent of the 912 Hattiesburg Group voiced his concern about the Disclose Act, saying that he believed it to be politicians’ efforts to “eradicate the speech they don’t like.”
In his remarks, State Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, turned his thoughts toward health care saying that recent legislation was forced upon Americans and that politicians don’t know or care what the people think.
Jim McQuiston, a retired professor of economics, spoke to the rally about the crippling of the drilling industry by the U.S. government and also said that it looked like the government was “determined to destroy our economy.”
The Rev. Ken Shinn of Columbia advised attendees to “rely on God,” not politicians, and urged citizens to pray for our leaders and our country. Ken Knopp, of the Columbia Edward Jones Office, spoke of the divine intervention that he believes aided those who founded this country. Although Knopp praised the beauties of American life, he warned that America is “in danger like never before.”
Dawn Beam, 10th District Circuit Court judge candidate from Sumrall, stated that “we have an obligation to do our part to make this country better and pass that torch to the next generation.”
Joseph Turney, 15th District Circuit Court judge candidate, emphasized accountability from government and urged the crowd,”Let’s take our country back!”
A surprise visit was made by 4th Congressional District candidate Steven Palazzo of Biloxi, who asked the audience what they thought about federal government today, which elicited boos from the crowd.
As the meeting drew to a close,15th Circuit Court District judge candidate Tony Mozingo of Purvis, commended attendees for exercising their freedom to assemble and for caring enough to show up on a holiday weekend. Tea Party Co-organizer Fite concluded the rally by telling listeners to “make a difference,” “speak out” and “bring prayer back into the open.”
Even though there were numerous speakers and the July heat was unrelenting, each speaker elicited applause from the audience and even a few verbal amens were heard.
When asked why he attended the Tea Party Rally, Marion County resident Emerson Stringer responded: “I am fed up with taxes!” Jimmie D’ Allen,a resident of Columbia, responded to the question by saying: “I wanted to show my support to Marion County and the United States. We need to get government back on track, balance the budget, consider the middle class, and get Washington to listen to us.”
Co-organizers Fite and Roberts say that they hope this will be the kick-off to forming a Tea Party chapter in Marion County and hope to have the rally on a yearly basis.
I can only imagine the laughs our founding fathers would get out of hearing this garbage! Fortunately, those founders were intellects and dreamers rather than agitators.
Actually, those founding fathers were agitators. The British government would not have considered them dreamers or intellects–they would have labeled them agitators as they rebelled against British authority-hence the Boston Tea Party.
Where were all these people the last 8 years when GWB and Co were running up our federal deficit.
Where’s Barney Frank and Chris Dodd after they ran the housing market into the sewer?
Our forefathers would NOT be laughing; they would ask, what has taken us so long to wake up.
Your use of the term garbage to describe free speech is what our forefathers would take issue with.
The tea party seeks to return to the dreams of the forefathers rather than the current agenda of pleasing a few.
Sounds like a good ole boy to me who is scared of positive change and real integrity in government. That or he is a simpleton.
My Comments Are ; To Be A Voter,Isn’t A Thrill.
& People Want You To Vote The Way They Vote,Or They Won’t Be Friends W/You !
Well,I Vote MY WAY.
The Ones In Office Now,I Pretty Much Voted,& The Got My Vote,Well,I Wish I Could Take A lot Of Them Back,Cause They Have Lied To Me To Get A Vote.
Lots Of Ppl.Think The Same,But Won’t Say It,Out Loud,Hurts Their,Family ?,
~~~
WAKE UP AMERICA
I’ll glad to put my name on this issue.
1: If government on all levels does not stop raising taxes and spending money we don’t have on things that we don’t need, our kids will not have the life we’ve had. The larger the government becomes, the higher taxes will go and more jobs and small business will disappear.
2: We’re being invaded by Mexico. Our presidents for the last 15 years have been playing politics with this issue. We’re getting ready to give 20 million illegal immigrants amnesty for votes. With time, towns, cities and government will be run by gangs and drug dealers.
3: Our factories have almost all disappeared because of free trade. “No taxes on imports” This is where jobs, inventions, and careers are made. Smart people are out mowing yards for work.
4: THE FIX: Reduce all government by 50%. Tax all imports so we can compete and you will see business thrive and jobs recreated.
I agree , WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!!!!!
I saw statistics recently that only 15% of our jobs are in manufacturing. My opinion is that a nation, that makes nothing, cannot be anything. We cannot continue to be a consumer nation and still exist.
We must do the things stated by Mr. Beets to regain our rightful place as leader of the world.
While not perfect, the world has prospered when we lead the way.
Comment on item #4.
Just check and see,how other nations protect their jobs, by
taxing our goods and restricting us.
It was interesting to attend the tea party event. I do not really label myself with any political group. I agree with the lower taxes theme that I heard from most of the speakers. However, aside from a few political applause lines like – take Washington back, fire N. Pelosi, let people keep more of what they earn, etc.., I still have not heard what the specific agenda of the Tea Party is. After listening to the speakers here and watching multiple events elsewhere, I have no idea what the unified plan is. It is all fine and dandy to say “lower taxes,” but gov. is not just that simple; or at least no more than Obama’s theme of “change” was as simple as Pollyanna voters had imagined!
What is their agenda? I haven’t actually heard any platform except encouragement for individuals to become more immersed in the political processes around us instead of letting the politicians run things! Overall, somewhere along the line people realized they could enrich themselves under the guise of being a civil servant and appearing to represent the people who voted them into office!
I’m not sure if there is an answer anymore – That is, is there ANY policy that actually will serve America by representing the majority of its citizens? The paradox is that there are too many majorities!!!
We’ve become the world’s largest “Ponzi scheme” which is a scam that pays off earlier investors by getting new investors! Of course this would continue working forever assuming a never-ending and continually increasing supply of investors (taxpayers). Its continuance also assumes that nobody within the structure who administers it gets too greedy and drains the funds. There are so many “if’s” involved that survival of the system is a matter of when it will fail!
The message of the Tea Party is to become involved with changing our government to something that will allow it to survive and remain the best form of government. As with almost any form of societal structure change can only be effective if it starts at the bottom and works its way up to the top.
Here’s a concept that’s probably going to make me unpopular and I don’t like saying it but there are simply too many people taking, not enough giving, and our population is collapsing under the sheer weight of its own numbers! We’re way overdue populations thinning by way of natural selection like an epidemic, earthquake, weather event, or a catastrophic war with massive casualties.
Congratulations to the present elected officials for making a public
appearance. At least they were brave enough politically to support a cause.Thomas Jefferson said ‘I may not agree with what you say but I will defend you right to say it.’ I have this feeling about Voting if you don’t vote the men who died defending our flag died in vain. I believe in voter I/D one vote for one legal citizen this is fair I don’t care about the past. The past is the past we have present issues the past couldn’t even dream of.Its been said if you don’t work you don’t eat and your word was your bond this ideology worked for our grandparents why wont it work for us. . Most of the elected officials have forgotten who hired them and voters have forgotten how to fire elected officials who don’t represent their wishes.
To Formerly Known as Concerned the Tea Party movement is not made of “agitators”, but of individuals who love America and what it stands for. And as for our Founding Fathers they would probably be leading the movement to take our Country back and put it in the hands of Christian men and women. God Bless America…
LOL. Nice try. You’ve forgotten that our nation was founded by intellects. I appreciate your opinion, and I hope you do mine, too. Tea Party people, from my observation, are anything but intellects. With all due respect intended, check your sentence structure. Horrors, I say, and our founders would likely agree.
Those humble intellects were farmers and local business men of their time who took the time to individually think about what was “right” for their families, communities, and human beings in general vesrus “big government” that forgot how to “represent” and was oppressive through taxation and physical force.
Regardless of the Tea Party agenda, if any one united agenda exist, if it motivates people to think before acting and act after true thought, including voting for persons of character rather than parties, than it is worth its weight in gold and a positive influence in our society.
I need no government to provide for me nor to protect me from myself. Government must be limited to serve the general public interest, not special interest. A government not questioned has absolute power and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Makes sense that the intellects were farmers and businessmen. Afterall, we were once an agrarian society.
With all due respect intended, Justice—you need some remedial writing classes. Only when you learn the basics will your comments have any credibility with me. Until then, I’ll chuckle, just like the founding fathers are probably chuckling from their graves about this whole tea party fiasco.
I appreciate your lack of constructive criticism and avoiding any substantive opinion and explanation of your position on the topic. Have a nice day in your own little world!
What could be more sustantive than reminding people that our great nation was founded by intellects?
The word is “substantive” and if Obama is your measure for what is intellect, than God help us all. Salesman, but not intellectual. He is nothing other than another leftist elitist with no conception of reality tht we the people live every day here in America, which he has not considering his history. He is guided only by his own self-serving destructive agenda. I only hope it is misguided and not intentional. There is more to an intellect than fast writing and smooth talking.
Thanks. My bad. He’s a Harvard law grad, for God’s sakes!!!
Being a Harvard grad lately is like being excrement from an un-American institute for destitute prostitutes. Obama is a prime example. Form.Cncd. sounds like an anal-retentive “intellectual/edukator” more worried about spelling and punctuation than the direction of our nation. Believe me, sport, the intellectuals sure had a lot of help from common folks in winning our Independence from King George and his minons. Pray God, we can do the same with the Obamanation we have in power now. Check my spelling on this: Supercalifragilisticexplealidocious
“Formerly known as concerned” should change their name to “What, Me Worry?”
Very good, Jughead. However, I think “formerly known as concerned should change his(or her) name to “Not a History Buff.” While the founding fathers were intellects, they were also rebels and agitators against the prevailing powers. “Formerly known as concerned” obviously did not attend the rally. There were speakers there such as Mr Knopp who could “whip circles” around concerned’s head.You can’t categorize the whole of any one group as intellects or non-intellects.
Ahhhhh—–but you can certainly categorize or group or founding fathers as intellects, Button and Jughead. That’s why this social experiment has lasted for more than 200 years. Sorry, but I doubt a bunch of knee-jerk, non-intellectuals will provide a solution.
Fifty-six members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. The others signed at a later time. That Declaration is one of the greatest documents in human history and magnificently expressed the ideas of political and social justice. That document allows the founders to be labeled intellects as you so aptly categorized them.I agree with your categorization. The intelligent written word is a reflection of the author. However, calling a group of people a bunch of “knee-jerks” without any documentation,or facts is an unfair categorization. There is no real basis for the assumption.I don’t know if the Tea Party will have an impact.However just because you “doubt they will provide a solution”does not mean they won’t. Remember a little thing called Fulton’s Folly?In honor of his achievements a statue of Fulton stands in Statuary Hall in Washington.Oh, to think that some who classified themselves as intelligent thought Fulton was a fool!
All I did was read the comments right here. That’s documentation enough for me to form an opinion pal.
Also, I would agree that the document is pretty cool. But, I’m saying they’re intellects based on their education/training more than on this product.
I would love to see some collective education stats. on the tea party people. I’m guessing they’re mainly a bunch of followers and folks who are easily swayed by the hype.
Yup, our founders, bless their hearts, were intellects. Intellects tend to be critical thinkers.
I haven’t noticed much critical thinking among the tea partiers. It seems to be a bunch of noise and chaos.
So called “intellectuals”, especialy those proclaiming themselves as one, have done more damage to this nation in the past over 200 years than all the practical thinkers could have done since time began. Practical people work and are productive. Recently intellectuals seem to sit on their fat spots and dictate their flawed concept of the universe and how they are going to “fix” it for us, with our tax money, against the will of the majority of American people. They want to take our money and force their outlandish crap down everyone’s throat. BTW would you consider Karl Marx an “intellectual”? Also, just wondering what the pay scale is for self anointed intellectuals. Diplomas and degrees won’t fix stupid… Ignorance maybe, but NOT stupidity.
I’m assuming you mean “should change his or her name….” And, bet those founding fathers were sticklers on subject-verb agreement!
Maybe an english teacher, but short on history and individual thought. I feel if it were up to you, we would be saying today “God save the queen” or George Washington would have been our first king (as that was what some wanted, but Washington knew blood was not shed to trade one big government for another).
Also, it takes a small person to criticize substantive individual opinion over nothing more than grammar.
As I said, the intellectual founders would likely laugh at opinions that contained gross errors like subject-verb agreement. Nope, pal. I ain’t no english teacher. I’m just an intellect, much like our founders and not much like the tea party people. There’s nothing wrong with being less than an intellect, I don’t think. It takes all kinds of people to make life interesting. I’m just saying that our founders would gasp if they, for one minute, believed that we’ve sunk so low that folks like Sarah Palin and the tea party people—-and other pseudo-intellects—-are gaining popularity with the masses.
What do you know about Sarah Palin & or the TEA party people as you call them. What do you really know about our founding fathers? I attended three of the TEA party events myself. I saw concerned Americans there in orderly protest of what’s taking place in our country. We do still have the first amendment don’t we? If Barack Hussein Obama has his way we may not in the future. That should concern you too.
While I certainly question Obama’s policies, I get some peace of mind knowing that he’s an intellect like our founding fathers were. That’s what keeps me going. I do not consider Palin an intellect, but rather, a hypocrit.
He’s an “intellect”????
No FKAC, more like a glorified teleprompter reader. Have you ever heard his unedited “speeches” where his teleprompter has malfunctioned? The man can barely put a cognitive sentence together!
Why haven’t we heard any of his Harvard students comment on his classes? Why are his grades, Harvard tuition, and professorship deemed off limits and in a lock box? Why haven’t we seen an article he has written being he was the Editor of the Harvard Law Review?
It make you wonder.
That’s funny. I would have said the same thing about Obama reaching out to the mindless millions with one empty word, “change”, with little explanation other than its time for hard working Americans at all levels to pony up and take care of the exponentially growing entitlement/deadbeat population, legal and otherwise. His “change” has been party line, costly, and adverse to the interest of the general public. Of course, the lack of politically savy opposition and other obvious characteristics of the victor probably contributed to his win.
I wonder what our conservative Christian founders would think of him and the last three presidents in significantly expanding the role of the federal government in our everyday lives and pocketbooks? This is what I believe the Tea Party members are concerned with. Those members I have met are from all walks of life, across party lines, and come from a variety of racial and religious backgrounds with a single primary thought that our country is in trouble and heading in the wrong direction on every facet of its being. There is agreement and disagreement as to what needs to be done to change that direction or how significant a change, but the Tea Party has provided a forum where the issues are discussed amicably and intellectually. Heard of any Tea Party riots lately. The answer is no, but there has been violent backlash by the weakminded, entitlement driven, self-serving left/liberals to disrupt, if not supress, the 1st Amendment rights of Tea Party members.
Hope you feel enlightened.
By the way, conservatism as a thought process is not a political party term and historically has meant “less is better than more” in terms of government, particularly the federal government, in our lives at the state and local level. True conservatism would have fought diligently to avoid the oppressive taxation of the people at all levels and avoided the extortion game the federal government now plays with our tax dollars in exchange for ruling over the states and their internal policies.
Check your facts, pal. Le tme know how many of our founders were conservative Christians. I know. Do you?
They were a few who were either deist or Christians, as some writings suggest they could have been either as widely disputed, and the majority were regarded as devout Christians of their day. Leaders in the church and their communities. Many rose from the protestant movement which was strongly oppressed around the world. They were all super conservative by today’s moral and fiscal terms, at least in the public eye. However, I’m sure you have some wikipedia #s that scholars were not aware of when I spent over 6.5 years obtaining my degrees in history, political science, and the law. Good luck with that.
LOL. Wow. You are trying to sound like an intellect, and it’s just not working, pal. Take the remedial writing. You’ll be glad you did.
I’m SURE they would be very impressed by Obama and his masses.
Well played – Touche
How about change “it’s” name? Another gender neutral personification. I’ll bet the founding fathers would know where to stickle a verb in a subject.
I’ll bite.
How do you stickle a verb?
You’re the intellectual, go figure.;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States
That explains it.. Wikipedia is all facts.
The trade center was leveled, people killed. The country began a campaign on securing our Country. We have built fences around airports, put security systems in schools and government buildings, created the patriot act which is a joke. We have added more airport security and gone to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. We worry about Iran getting nukes and smuggling them into the US. We all know the deal.
So, why all this if people can walk right into our country from Mexico and our Government do nothing about it. This looks like a major homeland security issue to me and the Government is doing nothing. Oh, excuse me, Oboma is suing Arizona for doing what he said he was going to do in his campaign to be elected.
Issues like these are what the Tea Party Is About.
Yep. I was waiting for someone to resort to scare tactics. Here we go. Our founders were a fearless lot. Enough said.
Since formerly known as concerned is more concerned with subject and verb agreement,sentence structure, and remedial reading, etc., than in facts, perhaps Concerned should check the correct spelling of the word hypocrite in his(or her) July 8th comment at 11:36am.While checking the spelling, read up on the definition as well.Then, refer back to my earlier Fulton comment.
You flatter yourself, “formerly known as concerned.”
LOL. Yep. I agree.
Looks like a lonely job.
‘Formerly known as concerned” is a snob. Actually, he is probably insecure. Of course, we know insecure people build themselves up by tearing down those they think are inferior to themselves. He would be surprised how many people who attend Tea Party events have advanced degrees in law, engineering, medicine and the pure sciences, just to name a few. But then, how would the dear boy know, since he never goes?
You’re right, Kittyslibertymom. I am a snob. I get a kick out of listening to the reasoning of the tea party people. It’s fun. I’m sure our founding fathers would be equally amused. You’ve made a big assumption though. You’ve labeled me of the male gender. Watch out for those assumptions. They’ll get you every time.
Also, I have amused myself on occasion by attending the teabagger events, so you’re assumption there is wrong too.
Now, tell me please. What are ya’ll teabaggers doing about the little failure to provide meeting notices right there in Marion County? Probably nothing.
To fkac: When one is in doubt, the generally accepted way to address a person of unknown gender is to use he/him.
As for the publicity in Marion County, I wouldn’t know. I don’t live in that county. I found out about it from a 912 member in another county.
What is funny is your continuing assertions that you KNOW the founding fathers would be amused by the Tea Party folks. As others have already suggested, you actually know very little about the founding fathers.
Watch your own assumptions!