My Freedom Rally Speech 9/12/2009

Why I Tea Party

My name is Hugh Reynolds Jr. and it feels great to be here among freedom loving, country loving, and God loving people. The constitution was designed to limit government and protect our God given rights, not provide us with things. I am truly blessed to have been born free in a country where so many people before me and to this day have sacrificed so much to protect our way of life. Our way of life and our constitution are more important than any of these buildings and monuments you see around you here today. When our family, friends and neighbors serve our country, here, at home and around the world, they are not defending their government, they are defending our way of life and our constitution. Our way of life is our constitution. When judges and politicians from the local level all the way up to the President that we the people elected start ignoring or remaking our constitution they are ignoring our way of life. Just as past generations have defended this great country and our constitution, so must we for future generations. It is our duty as United States citizens to voice our concerns to our representatives and our fellow citizens.

Like many of you, I have family and friends that ask, why are you going to a tea party or why are you going to protest at a town hall meeting? My first thought is, because I can, why aren’t you? You may have voted for Barack Obama but you didn’t vote for all the career politicians in congress, did you? My second thought is I don’t want my country REmade, I like it just the way our Founding Fathers intended it to be. Our Founding Fathers were some of the most intelligent people to ever walk on earth. If you remake our country, you are remaking our way of life and our constitution. So this 2008 sore looser does all he can, blog, tweet, listen to talk radio, write and read emails, call my congressman, vote, watch Glen Beck, watch fox news, start a tshirt business with quotes from our founding fathers on the backs, express my views in a positive way to others, and yes attend tea parties. And still we ask – what can I do? Some day our Grandchildren may ask us what happened to our freedom, what did you do?

A percentage of misguided citizens who are less informed and poor candidates to choose from will always be a threat to our representative republic, this will never change, but what does need to change is for good people to stand up when the politicians lay down. The time and effort of one informed citizens vote is cancelled out by a voter wanting the government to take care of them. That’s why I am going to a tea party; would you like to join me?

Like many of you my first protest was April 15, 2009. Mine was in the pouring rain with SOME of my family. I remember not knowing what to expect when I was about a block away from my first protest, would anybody be there or would they not show due to the rain? After seeing the turn out that day in the pouring rain I knew people had finally had enough. Not enough people had enough yet but it was a start. My town hall rally in Towson Md. was on one of the hottest days of this summer and one of my coworkers said, “There probably won’t be that many people there because of the heat” but I knew there would be, and there was, including some people that the President requested be there bought and paid for by the unions with their mass produced signs, that’s when I knew we were starting to make a difference. More and more people are starting to wake up and realize the country they love can not be taken for granted any longer.

We The People as a whole are responsible for the government we get and as individual citizens we are also responsible for holding our representatives accountable for the offices we trust them to regardless of party affiliation. When emails, phone calls, letters and laws have little effect, it is the people’s duty and responsibility to voice their opinions and concerns.

The antique press, the blame America first crowd and the people who fell for the hope and change bumper sticker pretend not to understand what tea parties are all about, but they do, and their insults and misrepresentation of us is proof that we are making a difference. The people you see here today are the same people you would see at a 4th of July parade or lining the streets of a funeral procession of one of our fallen heroes. We love our country and only good can come from good people standing up to preserve it in the only way they know how, regardless of others who think there is no threat to our way of life.