I attended the Tea Party in Overland Park, KS on April 15th with my little sister (who introduced me to Ayn Rand years ago). I brought my sign from the stimulus protest a couple months ago and a armful of pamplets from ARC. It was a lot of fun, and I have two things worth noting:

1.) A lot of people I talked to had either heard of Ayn Rand, had read Atlas Shrugged, or were in the process of reading it. There were times when I just stood with my “Ayn Rand is Right” and “Read Atlas Shrugged” sign and people would come to me to talk. I even met a few new Objectivists, including a supporter of ARI who I had never met. Overall, it was very heartening to see such a positive response to Ayn Rand.

2.) There were a *lot* of people there. I can’t judge crowds too well, but from what I saw I don’t doubt the newspaper reports that put the crowd at somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000. Traffic to the site was backed up as far as I could see in all directions. There were a few crazies in the crowd, but the vast majority of the people there had great signs and seemed to understand some of the real problems that our country has put itself in.

Below is a picture of my sister and I, and you can use this link to view the rest of the pictures I took: http://tinyurl.com/dx72da

Rachelle and Darren

I decided that I’m going to go to a local April 15th Tea Party protest in Overland Park, KS. When I first heard about the protest I thought the organizers were going to include support of the Fair Tax, and since I don’t support the Fair Tax in one bit I decided that I wouldn’t attend. However, after doing a little more investigation I realized that tea party was not going to be a Fair Tax rally, and now I’m going.

I wrote an email to another Objectivist in town, and since it almost constitutes a fun blog post I thought I’d include it here:

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I’m not so concerned with Fair Tax supporters being at the protest as much as I am with Fair Tax supporters organizing the protest and turning it into a Fair Tax rally. I think the Fair Tax is, in some ways, much worse than the crazy tax system we have today, and it’s not something that I want to support. Nor do I want to lend Ayn Rand’s name to their cause (as if it were mind to lend). I listen to the Neal Boortz show regularly (Boortz cowrote the books on the Fair Tax), and I think they’re trying to take advantage of the good, honest anger that people feel about what the government is doing to our economy in order to push their fake cure, the Fair Tax. I’m not concerned now that I know that the Fair Tax supporters are actually going to be doing their own thing on the JCCC campus.

If I were to write out the Fair Tax scenario I had in my head, it would be something like this:

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to stop this mindless regulation of the economy!

ANGRY CITIZENS: Yeah!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to get the government out of the economy and our lives!

ANGRY CITIZENS: Yeah!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to put the government in its place!

ANGRY CITIZENS: YEAH!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: Ok, so now that we all agree, here’s what we’ve gotta do! First, we have to repeal the 16th amendment! Then we’ll get rid of the federal income taxes and start up a 30%…. ERRRRRR 23%……… sales tax on everything you buy! Then we’ll form a government committee to determine how much tax dollars an individual would have to spend to buy the “basic necessities,” and then we’ll deposit that amount in a special government bank account every month, and then we’ll send every citizen their own debit card that they can use to get their government money! Then all companies will flock to the United States, the government will still have the same amount of tax dollars to spend (if not more!), and the poor won’t have to pay any taxes at all! Say it with me! Fair Tax, Fair Tax, Fair T……

ANGRY CITIZENS: ????????????????????????????