Tea Party Meeting

I attended my first Tea Party meeting tonight. There were over 130 people in attendance with a good cross-section in age. We opened with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. The four principles of the Tea Party were stated and there were several speakers. The emphasis was on action. We are not to just sit around and talk about what's wrong with our country, but also to do something about it. There was a segment of the meeting called the "Lightning Round" where anyone was allowed to speak their mind for two minutes. One gentleman, whose family fled the tyranny of Fidel Castro in Cuba 50 years ago, gave a very passionate talk about how we need to preserve our Constitutional Republic and not sit around and let socialism take over. He drew the parallel between what is happening in our country today to the past in Cuba when Castro was promising "hope and change" to the people. The next meeting is expected to be more of a workshop where the participants will break up into groups or committees to move the Tea Party forward in political action. I was glad to see they are about principles and not political parties.