Tea partying with patriots in Gurnee
Dave Balson
Opinion Editor
The Gurnee American Legion Hall is not easy to miss, being one of the few places in town with a M47 Patton Army Tank parked on its front lawn. Around 6 p.m. on April 1, people began to arrive at the hall for the Northern Illinois Patriot’s April Meetup.
It was the warmest April Fools Day on record. Next door, a little league baseball team enjoyed a carefree practice in the 82 degree weather. But the Patriots converged on the meeting hall to address a very serious concern: They had been “Taxed Enough Already.”
The Northern Illinois Patriots consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, a loosely defined national protest movement that supports “constitutionally limited government.” The Tea Party movement emerged in opposition to the federal stimulus package passed in 2009 and has since organized against much of the legislation passed under the Obama administration.
Fifty-nine percent of voters in Lake County, where Gurnee is located, voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and the 100-some people who filled the upstairs meeting room of the American Legion hall were not thrilled with that result. Besides being all white and mostly middle-aged or older, the most common thread running through the crowd was a belief that the federal government had grown dangerously large and power hungry.
The evening’s program began with an opening prayer, led by organizer Tony Raymond: “Dear heavenly father, we thank you for the freedoms we enjoy in the United States and we pray that you will serve alongside us as we seek to preserve and protect those freedoms. Father, I pray that tonight will be honoring to you. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Next, a strapping, relatively young organizer named David Zumwalt went around the room with a microphone asking people what brought them to the meeting.
Marsha said she loves her country, but, “we’re losing our freedoms—for speech, religion, if they have their way, our right to bear arms.”
Stacy won’t be a victim to her government.
Dotty doesn’t think “we should give our money to all of the illegals or the welfare bums.” Dotty got quite the applause.
Joan said she is “disgusted with the direction the country is going in” and wants “to get back to the Constitution.”
Jonathan said he is 67 years old and that the 2010 midterms will be “the most important election in my life.”
Louise and Kevin Stolarik shared similar concerns in an interview.
“Taxes are going up, and people have less freedom,” Kevin said. “And with the health care bill, I’m going to lose my insurance because the government is going to ration care.”
Besides taxes, the Stolariks’ main concern is government interfering in their lives.
“We have guns,” Louise said. “Illinois is the only state where you have to register your gun, and it’s just not right.”
Louise also doesn’t like the student loan reform President Obama signed into law in March.
“I can’t afford to put my own kids through college,” she said. “Why should I be paying for everybody else’s kids? The government is taking over all the loans. They say who gets one and who doesn’t.”
“There will be a quota system, like everything else,” Kevin added.
Next, organizer Greg Clements spoke about the group’s five core principles. He said the group is pro-family, stands for limited government, supports a free-market economy, believes in national defense and wants more choice in education.
“Many of you who have kids in school know that what they are receiving is not education,” Clements said. “It’s indoctrination.”
Marilyn Rickert, the Midwest irector for the Fair Tax Movement in Illinois, also spoke at the event. Rickert said that when the “founding fathers decided to start America, they didn’t want a federal government that does very much.”
She said that after writing the Constitution, the founders wrote the Federalist Papers to “explain it to the people.”
Rickert had produced packets for people to pick up on their way in. The first page was an excerpt from the Federalist Papers. The second page was from the “10 point program of Communism” from Karl Marx’s “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” One point was circled, “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
“Does that sound a wee-bit familiar to anyone?” Rickert asked. The crowd responded that it did sound familiar.
“If you want to know where your taxes come from, it wasn’t the founding fathers,” Rickert said. “It was Karl Marx.”
Rickert is pushing for a “fair tax,” which she describes as an indirect consumption tax.
“You should decide when you are going to pay taxes, how much you will pay, and if you should pay any at all that particular day,” Rickert said. “It’s entirely up to you.
“With the fair tax, you will be able to pay your necessities of life tax free, as long as you are an American citizen or a legal resident. Sorry, but illegals are foreign visitors They’ll have to pay the full share.”
The crowd erupted into applause.
Rickert also said the fair tax would finally force criminals to pay taxes.
“I don’t know about your neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure the drug dealer in my neighborhood is not sending in his tax form,” she said. The crowd laughed.
“What is the point of having all this money, your fellow drug dealer or your drug dealer or whoever, if you’re not going to spend it?” Rickert said. “For the first time in their lives, criminals are going to be paying taxes. Will they be paying 100 percent? No, I’m sure they will steal some stuff. They are criminals, after all. But they can’t steal everything, and they’ll be paying more than they are now.”
Rickert was also upset that her First Amendment rights were being violated. Rickert’s organization is tax-exempt, a designation awarded to some non-profit groups and religious organizations. An organization that engages in partisan political activity can lose its tax exemptions.
“Every day my freedom of speech is violated, and it really ticks me off,” Rickert said. “Did you know that the pastor of your church, or your priest, are also regulated by the federal tax code? Things have gotten so bad, it’s not what your priest or pastor actually says, it’s what the IRS agent listening in the audience thinks he says.”
Among the speakers were two potential candidates for the 2010 midterm elections. The first, Michael Niecestro, is running as an Independent for the Senate seat previously held by Barack Obama.
Niecestro, a 29-year veteran of the mortgage banking industry, opposes the Sixteenth Amendment. Passed in 1913, the Sixteen Amendment set in stone the federal government’s right to tax income.
Niecestro said the Sixteenth Amendment had made his life miserable.
“(The income tax) is our money being redistributed downward,” he said. “I would eliminate the income tax, the dividend tax, the capital gains tax and the estate tax.”
In a later interview, Niecestro said he would vote to repeal the new health care law and start over with new reform legislation.
“The health care bill will not work for the people,” he said. “The end result is that insurance companies are going to end up folding.”
After repealing the law, Niecestro would like to replace it with other legislation.
“Open up the interstate borders,” he said. “Let people go anywhere they want. I believe in tort reform. There are a lot of frivolous lawsuits out there. Just like the frivolous auto accidents where people go out and have a fake accident and they put in falsified claims. We all pay for that. That’s the same thing with the insurance industry.”
In his Senate race, Niecestro will face Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. Niecestro is running as a more conservative alternative to Kirk.
“He’s for partial-birth abortion,” he said. “I don’t believe in abortion, period. I’m pro-life. A child at conception is the most important thing. The sanctity of a marriage is between a man and a woman. To me, Mr. Kirk is just another liberal candidate.”
The second candidate to take the stage was Michael White. He is the Constitution Party’s choice for governor. White said the Constitution Party is “a conservative group who take the right to life, liberty and the freedom of happiness literally.”
White said the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to mandate health insurance.
“I would sue the government for state sovereignty,” he said. “Growing the size of government programs takes away from our humanity, our charity, our concern for our neighbors. America is not about community responsibility. It is about individual responsibility to our community.”
The theme of the tea party and the mood of the Patriots was clear: The size of the federal government, the taxes being levied on its citizens and the government’s ability to regulate firearms are a clear and present danger to the future of America.
The Patriots want to take that future back.
____________
Mr. Balson's analysis of the Tea Party here.
Opinion Editor
The Gurnee American Legion Hall is not easy to miss, being one of the few places in town with a M47 Patton Army Tank parked on its front lawn. Around 6 p.m. on April 1, people began to arrive at the hall for the Northern Illinois Patriot’s April Meetup.
It was the warmest April Fools Day on record. Next door, a little league baseball team enjoyed a carefree practice in the 82 degree weather. But the Patriots converged on the meeting hall to address a very serious concern: They had been “Taxed Enough Already.”
The Northern Illinois Patriots consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, a loosely defined national protest movement that supports “constitutionally limited government.” The Tea Party movement emerged in opposition to the federal stimulus package passed in 2009 and has since organized against much of the legislation passed under the Obama administration.
Fifty-nine percent of voters in Lake County, where Gurnee is located, voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and the 100-some people who filled the upstairs meeting room of the American Legion hall were not thrilled with that result. Besides being all white and mostly middle-aged or older, the most common thread running through the crowd was a belief that the federal government had grown dangerously large and power hungry.
The evening’s program began with an opening prayer, led by organizer Tony Raymond: “Dear heavenly father, we thank you for the freedoms we enjoy in the United States and we pray that you will serve alongside us as we seek to preserve and protect those freedoms. Father, I pray that tonight will be honoring to you. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Next, a strapping, relatively young organizer named David Zumwalt went around the room with a microphone asking people what brought them to the meeting.
Marsha said she loves her country, but, “we’re losing our freedoms—for speech, religion, if they have their way, our right to bear arms.”
Stacy won’t be a victim to her government.
Dotty doesn’t think “we should give our money to all of the illegals or the welfare bums.” Dotty got quite the applause.
Joan said she is “disgusted with the direction the country is going in” and wants “to get back to the Constitution.”
Jonathan said he is 67 years old and that the 2010 midterms will be “the most important election in my life.”
Louise and Kevin Stolarik shared similar concerns in an interview.
“Taxes are going up, and people have less freedom,” Kevin said. “And with the health care bill, I’m going to lose my insurance because the government is going to ration care.”
Besides taxes, the Stolariks’ main concern is government interfering in their lives.
“We have guns,” Louise said. “Illinois is the only state where you have to register your gun, and it’s just not right.”
Louise also doesn’t like the student loan reform President Obama signed into law in March.
“I can’t afford to put my own kids through college,” she said. “Why should I be paying for everybody else’s kids? The government is taking over all the loans. They say who gets one and who doesn’t.”
“There will be a quota system, like everything else,” Kevin added.
Next, organizer Greg Clements spoke about the group’s five core principles. He said the group is pro-family, stands for limited government, supports a free-market economy, believes in national defense and wants more choice in education.
“Many of you who have kids in school know that what they are receiving is not education,” Clements said. “It’s indoctrination.”
Marilyn Rickert, the Midwest irector for the Fair Tax Movement in Illinois, also spoke at the event. Rickert said that when the “founding fathers decided to start America, they didn’t want a federal government that does very much.”
She said that after writing the Constitution, the founders wrote the Federalist Papers to “explain it to the people.”
Rickert had produced packets for people to pick up on their way in. The first page was an excerpt from the Federalist Papers. The second page was from the “10 point program of Communism” from Karl Marx’s “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” One point was circled, “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
“Does that sound a wee-bit familiar to anyone?” Rickert asked. The crowd responded that it did sound familiar.
“If you want to know where your taxes come from, it wasn’t the founding fathers,” Rickert said. “It was Karl Marx.”
Rickert is pushing for a “fair tax,” which she describes as an indirect consumption tax.
“You should decide when you are going to pay taxes, how much you will pay, and if you should pay any at all that particular day,” Rickert said. “It’s entirely up to you.
“With the fair tax, you will be able to pay your necessities of life tax free, as long as you are an American citizen or a legal resident. Sorry, but illegals are foreign visitors They’ll have to pay the full share.”
The crowd erupted into applause.
Rickert also said the fair tax would finally force criminals to pay taxes.
“I don’t know about your neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure the drug dealer in my neighborhood is not sending in his tax form,” she said. The crowd laughed.
“What is the point of having all this money, your fellow drug dealer or your drug dealer or whoever, if you’re not going to spend it?” Rickert said. “For the first time in their lives, criminals are going to be paying taxes. Will they be paying 100 percent? No, I’m sure they will steal some stuff. They are criminals, after all. But they can’t steal everything, and they’ll be paying more than they are now.”
Rickert was also upset that her First Amendment rights were being violated. Rickert’s organization is tax-exempt, a designation awarded to some non-profit groups and religious organizations. An organization that engages in partisan political activity can lose its tax exemptions.
“Every day my freedom of speech is violated, and it really ticks me off,” Rickert said. “Did you know that the pastor of your church, or your priest, are also regulated by the federal tax code? Things have gotten so bad, it’s not what your priest or pastor actually says, it’s what the IRS agent listening in the audience thinks he says.”
Among the speakers were two potential candidates for the 2010 midterm elections. The first, Michael Niecestro, is running as an Independent for the Senate seat previously held by Barack Obama.
Niecestro, a 29-year veteran of the mortgage banking industry, opposes the Sixteenth Amendment. Passed in 1913, the Sixteen Amendment set in stone the federal government’s right to tax income.
Niecestro said the Sixteenth Amendment had made his life miserable.
“(The income tax) is our money being redistributed downward,” he said. “I would eliminate the income tax, the dividend tax, the capital gains tax and the estate tax.”
In a later interview, Niecestro said he would vote to repeal the new health care law and start over with new reform legislation.
“The health care bill will not work for the people,” he said. “The end result is that insurance companies are going to end up folding.”
After repealing the law, Niecestro would like to replace it with other legislation.
“Open up the interstate borders,” he said. “Let people go anywhere they want. I believe in tort reform. There are a lot of frivolous lawsuits out there. Just like the frivolous auto accidents where people go out and have a fake accident and they put in falsified claims. We all pay for that. That’s the same thing with the insurance industry.”
In his Senate race, Niecestro will face Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. Niecestro is running as a more conservative alternative to Kirk.
“He’s for partial-birth abortion,” he said. “I don’t believe in abortion, period. I’m pro-life. A child at conception is the most important thing. The sanctity of a marriage is between a man and a woman. To me, Mr. Kirk is just another liberal candidate.”
The second candidate to take the stage was Michael White. He is the Constitution Party’s choice for governor. White said the Constitution Party is “a conservative group who take the right to life, liberty and the freedom of happiness literally.”
White said the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to mandate health insurance.
“I would sue the government for state sovereignty,” he said. “Growing the size of government programs takes away from our humanity, our charity, our concern for our neighbors. America is not about community responsibility. It is about individual responsibility to our community.”
The theme of the tea party and the mood of the Patriots was clear: The size of the federal government, the taxes being levied on its citizens and the government’s ability to regulate firearms are a clear and present danger to the future of America.
The Patriots want to take that future back.
____________
Mr. Balson's analysis of the Tea Party here.
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