Tea party gatherings on the Fourth mix the educational and the patriotic
"Tea party" activists across the nation tried to put the "independence" back in Independence Day this weekend with festivals and other gatherings focused on the Constitution -- and how to use it for political gain....
"The rallies were a start, but the goal now is to get people to stop and really think about things," said Kerry Scott, an organizer of the Alexandria Tea Party, one of several hundred conservative activists who attended "An American Event," a Fourth of July festival for "God and country" staged by a local farmer on rolling farmland in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains this weekend.
Amid Civil War reenactors, a reading of the Declaration of Independence and booths selling Native American artwork, Scott handed out strips of white paper, each printed with quotations from such American luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington....
The view that the Constitution does not permit such federal actions as the passage of health reform, the regulation of the environment or the imposition of educational mandates on the states is, of course, a controversial one. Where the tea party sees an encroachment of states' rights, the left sees a valid interpretation of the mandate, described in Article 1, Section 8, to provide for the "general welfare."...
Read entire article at WaPo
"The rallies were a start, but the goal now is to get people to stop and really think about things," said Kerry Scott, an organizer of the Alexandria Tea Party, one of several hundred conservative activists who attended "An American Event," a Fourth of July festival for "God and country" staged by a local farmer on rolling farmland in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains this weekend.
Amid Civil War reenactors, a reading of the Declaration of Independence and booths selling Native American artwork, Scott handed out strips of white paper, each printed with quotations from such American luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington....
The view that the Constitution does not permit such federal actions as the passage of health reform, the regulation of the environment or the imposition of educational mandates on the states is, of course, a controversial one. Where the tea party sees an encroachment of states' rights, the left sees a valid interpretation of the mandate, described in Article 1, Section 8, to provide for the "general welfare."...