TEAParty In Meridian a Pleasant Noontime Interlude

Are you better off than you were $4 trillion ago?
- protest sign seen on the Courthouse Square

Tea Party celebrants marked their first year in Bosque
County Thursday, April 15, carrying signs that asserted
their core beliefs:

"Give me liberty, not debt

"This is not Obama-Nation

"Liberty or Tyranny - Hands off my money!

"Wake Me Up When The Nightmare Is Over"

At a noon rally at the Bosque County Courthouse, they heard
speechmakers denounce a rise in "Marxism" that, they said,
threatens to engulf the nation and strangle it.

Said Thomas Jefferson, that is, perennial conservative
candidate Walt Lewis wearing his disguise, "A government big
enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take
away everything you've got."

Darren Yancy, Republican candidate for State Senator in
District 22, read the words of the specific charges made
against King George III in "The Declaration of
Independence."

When he reached the part that denounced the monarch "for
imposing taxes upon us without our consent," the crowd
cheered wildly, as they did when he said of U.S. economic
power, "I think everybody here would say that America is the
political center of the world...

"If you don't love it, leave it. We're not apologizing for
it any more."

He said also that "A Marxist attack on God and the right to
bear arms has rekindled the great American spirit. 'Give me
Liberty or give me death!'"

County Judge Cole Word said "I made a vow when I took the
oath as County Judge that we would never forget 9/11 in
Bosque County."

He recalled the formation of Bosque County back in 1856 when
the founding President of Baylor University, Reb Baylor, a
man who served as the first Chief Justice of the Texas
Supreme Court, instructed the Sheriff on how to open the
first session of the newly formed District Court of Bosque
County.

"He told him to say 'Oyez, oyez, oyez. The District Court
of Bosque County will now come to order.'"

Under his breath, he said, the judge added "God bless
Texas," and the Sheriff thought that was part of the
ceremony, so the Sheriff repeated that, too.

"God bless Texas."

In opening the event, Beverly Moss, the mistress of
ceremonies, had reminded the throng of about 80 people that
"The liberals in this country think the brain trust is
inside the Beltway."

She told of a mythic proposal by a "country boy" in which
the economy was saved when 40 million Americans of an age
were ordered to retire, which solved the unemployment
problem immediately. They were ordered to buy new cars,
something that bailed out the auto industry and boosted the
banking business. Furthermore, they were required to pay
off their home mortgages, which handled the financial
crisis.

Finally, these newly retired people had all members of
Congress pay their taxes.

The crowd burst into merriment.

Ms. Moss introduced a local singer named Karen Thomasy who
recalled that the state song, "Texas, Our Texas," was
written by a music teacher named William Marsh - a native of
Liverpool, England, who got here as quickly as he could -
won a contest in which entries came from each State
Senatorial District in 1924. Col. John Philip Sousa of the
U.S. Marine Band once said of it that it was the best state
song he had ever heard.

She read the words of Emma Lazarus inscribed on the pedestal
of the Statue of Liberty.