The crowd was large: almost 1,000.
The issues were deep: cap and trade, gun control and government takeover.
But the message was simple: “Let’s do better.”
Deb Hearn, co-chairwoman for the Kokomo Tea Party, offered those three suggestive words as she segued into the guest speakers for Tuesday’s rally.
Hundreds filled the rows of folding chairs inside the Kokomo Event Center as local political activists took the platform at the tea party’s first rally of the year.
The Taxed Enough Already rallies began April 15 last year around the U.S. Kokomo’s Tea Party has had three rallies, including Tuesday’s, since then.
“I never dreamed we would have been doing this for a year, much less into 2010,” Tea Party co-chairwoman Kenlyn Watson told the crowd.
Near the building’s entrance, tea party committee members and other supporters were armed with petitions as they greeted rally-goers.
Some of the attendees chucked dollar bills into a toilet, with “Flush ’Em Again in 2010” written on it, to raise money for future tea parties.
Once the audience members took their seats, the Tea Party opened with the film “I Am the Mob.”
The video included clips from TV news broadcasts and talk shows in which the speakers described Tea Parties as having “angry mob” mentalities. At the end, it included clips filmed during the September Kokomo Tea Party for which rally-goers recorded why they were “mobsters.”
The speeches opened with author Eric Wyatt explaining possible economic ramifications of a cap-and-trade policy.
He encouraged his audience to not let local, state and federal government representatives cast votes against their constituents’ beliefs.
“You’re not getting my vote unless you have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and stand up to the people in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “... If the politicians don’t represent us well, then we need to run against them.”
Speaker Larry Piekarski, who contributes to the Gun Rights Radio Network, highlighted the consequences of gun control once he took the podium.
He referred to a bill in the Indiana Legislature that would allow employees to leave guns in their cars while they were at work. The Associated Press reported the Indiana House Natural Resources Committee voted 10-1 to pass the bill, but business interests and advocates for domestic violence victims have openly opposed it.
“This isn’t a bill about what goes on at work,” Piekarski said. “This is about what goes on commuting to work.”
The brunt of Tuesday’s political speeches came from Bryan Alexander as he drilled government takeover, referring to it as socialism.
He mentioned the three basic human rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The government, he said, is infringing on those rights.
“I do know we’re heading down a very dangerous road,” he said. “... And that road is socialism.”
He cited former Soviet Russia KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov, saying the U.S. is heading into a pattern of demoralization, destabilization, crisis and normalization.
To counteract that downward spiral, Alexander said, the country needs to elect more candidates such as Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown. The traditionally Democratic state elected Brown, a Republican, to replace late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
“If the people of Massachusetts can do that, so can Indiana and every other state in this country,” Alexander said.
Watson said the Kokomo Tea Party has two more rallies planned.
The next will be March 16. The tea party plans to host a political forum with candidates in the May primary election, she said.
The second rally will be on Tax Day, which is April 15.
• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.
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