In front of the Liberty Bell on the corner of Truxtun and Chester avenues at 4:30 p.m. on April 15, members of the Taxed Enough Already Party gathered to express and discuss their concerns for the current political state of the country.
Protesters gathered in front of the stage, listening to speakers Damon Dunn, Jaz McKay, Inga Barks, John Mackey, Andy Vidak, John Lake and Bill Maze criticize the current Congress and administration on political affairs. The crowd cheered to points expressed by the speakers and sang patriotic songs.
Both supporters and criticizers of the Tea Party openly expressed their opinions amid the gathering.
“I am a Tea Party participant because both the Democratic and Republican parties are not serving the constituents well. The waste, the fraud, the deals are costing our country’s freedoms way too much money,” said Lisa Anderson, who stood on the corner of the two intersecting avenues, holding her sign for passing traffic to see.
“It is also time to clean up the Congress [and] the Senate. Some of them have been in there for 30, 40, 50 years and we are dealing with the same issues we were dealing with 30, 40, 50 years ago. It’s always health care, education, school, the economy; [it’s] the same problems going on.”
“I’m worried our youth will not have the same opportunities that my parents had and that I’ve had. We are heavily over-taxed,” said Anderson. “The Tea party is grassroots, and it’s motivated in moving people to act, but it isn’t designed necessarily to take a party role. That is not really the intent of the people.”
“Obama was change, but the change that he brought was not what I believe the people who voted for him expected, and he did not really lie about what he was going to do. He wasn’t completely clear, but I think people heard what they wanted to hear, and he definitely appealed to people who were in entitlement programs and want to stay in entitlement programs.”
People in favor of the current presidential administration were also in attendance. Standing amongst the crowd, they spoke their viewpoint of the event.
“[Obama] represents a system of policies we desperately needed after the mis-management of the Bush Administration,” said Aaron Laycook, a law student, when asked about his position on Barack Obama.
“I think he’s dedicated to civil rights and the acknowledgement that we can be secure and ensure the protection of liberty is something that we desperately need and that providing health care to people is something we should all strive to do.
“I thought [George W. Bush] made decisions that I wouldn’t have made if I was in his position. I think he took risk with American liberty, [with] military adventurism and I think that he sacrificed civil liberties in the pursuit of security, which as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘Those that are willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither’ and I think he damaged our standing abroad in a time when we needed allies,” said Laycook.
Oxc Lebrion, a native of El Salvador, and a criticizer of the Tea party, said, “The reason I am here today is because I knew that these people were going to come here. These people are not good people, because these people are the same people that give problems to all other people. They are extremist, they are the right extremists and these people are united together with the Republican Party, the same people that used to oppose the freedom of the slaves.
“I’m opposed to these people because they always are against something that is about progress,” said Lebrion.
Bill Potter, 72, a licensed land surveyor and a Tea Party conservative, said, “I read an article in the Bakersfield Californian in the editorial section by a guy who writes for the Miami Herald, and I just lost it. He was talking about how we’re all racist and the fact that we didn’t vote for Obama makes us racist and the fact that I would have voted for a black conservative didn’t have anything to do with it. I told him he was the racist among other things.
“I don’t care if [presidential candidates] are purple,” said Potter. “Now I think Bush screwed up by not taking Condoleezza Rice as vice president for his second term. Then should have run against Obama and I would have voted against her in a heartbeat. Five years ago, I would have voted for Colin Powell but he just ‘liberaled’ out on everything.
“There was a black gal that stopped me and said that we haven’t given Obama a chance. He’s had a year and he didn’t work on anything but the health care plan that nobody wants. If he wanted to work on something then he could have worked on jobs.”
Patrick Young, a native of Tehachapi, expressed his concerns for the current state of the country. “You’ve got to get to the foundation that built this country that is our U.S. Constitution. Every word of it, it is actual, you’ve got to go back to it.”
“If we don’t go back to the Constitution we are history,” said Young, “The United States is the last country that is left and we are going away fast. We are the last free country on this planet.”