A response...

I've been a follower of Michael Graham's blog for a long time now (http://www.michaelgraham.com/). A recent item he covered got me to thinking so for the first time I decide to reply. Here is my response to him talking about how the Boston Globe reporting and math skills are a bit below par:

Not to defend the Globe here... but... Recently, I was in North Carolina to look at graduate schools and I noticed that their taxes are a bit weird. While they do have a low tax rate of 4.5% they also have County Tax which varies. For example the county tax in Wake County is 1.75% so tax comes in at 6.25% (which is higher than Mass).
I guess that I am merely splitting hairs here, but, there is more to this. The thing is I don't mind paying more tax there. Overall, the tax burden is much less in North Carolina than it is here. While sales tax is slightly higher, the state taxes much less items overall then in good ole Taxachusetts. This new tax hike is horrible. It is the government saying that if we can't tax you one way we will tax you another way. No matter what! And what happens? People like me with a degree (not to be all high and mighty) ended up leaving the state. So, now you have less people to tax and a brain drain starting in this state. Which in turn means more taxes next year.
How about this Massachusetts... cut the spending. If you don't have the money stop spending so much. Its what I've done during this recession why can't my government do the same. I think this is particularly funny timing; coming after the Tea Parties... Oh well! I guess those in power will never learn.

For those of you who have not heard of Michael Graham he is a local radio talk show host in Boston on 96.9 FM. He is amazing to listen to for those of you who are of the moderate persuasion. Keep up the good work Michael Graham.

Boston Tea Party 15.04.09

On tax day this year I headed out with two friends to attend two separate Tea Parties in Boston. Needless to say, the experience was amazing. We attended these Tea Parties to send a message to our government. A message that we the people are fed up with out of control government spending. This message was bipartisan and the people who attended held a variety of different beliefs. I myself a libertarian was joined by my girlfriend Kristen, a moderate, and her friend Shannah, a strict liberal who voted for Obama. We spent the night before creating signs together with the hope to show the government that spending and taxation is getting out of control.

The first Tea Party was held on the Boston Common from 1100 to about 1530. It was amazing. I spent hours walking around reading and laughing at the signs people had created and talking to others about current issues. The crowd was extremely diverse. There were kids and parents, teenagers in high school, the college crowd, moms and dads, the elderly. They represented different socio-economic levels within society as well from the poor to moderately rich. The event was marked by several key speakers yelling into a microphone to those who could hear and the occasional cheers and jeers of the crowd. In the end I would say at the height about 1500 people were present.

Next, a few hundred of us with our signs marched through Boston towards the second Tea Party. This experience was phenomenal. We had a police escort all the while people would stare in bewilderment at us (maybe understanding the message we were trying to portray). There were a few occasional jeers from random Bostonians, but, mostly the comments were uniformed (such as "F#@! Fox News" or "Go back to Soviet Russia"). At first, only a few hundred people were present, yet, within the hour almost 2000 people had showed up. We were treated to the quips of Michael Graham (an amazing public speaker if I might say so) and other speakers. After which crates of tea were thrown into the harbor followed by the singing of the national anthem (which almost made me cry).

The end result? For a grassroots movement this was an exemplary start. Not once during both Tea Parties was there a fight or an arrest. We proved that we can hold a peaceful protest to get a message out. While some might not take this seriously I feel that there are more people listening now. I just think its was amazing that with a crowd that had moderates with anti-spending posters mixed in with conservatives with anti-Obama signs mixed in with militia men with their flags mixed in with liberals with elephant flags mixed in with all sorts of other ideas that the worse thing that happened was a few words shouted.