Greeting The Tea Party Express

Today we greet the Tea Party Express in Illinois, my home state.

Last night my children and I (ages 12 and 10) made our posters for the Tea Party.  I thought I’d share them with you all today. 

I’ve been looking forward to today and meeting several people who I’ve chatted with on Free Republic these many years, but have never had a chance to meet.  Especially looking forward to meeting Jim Robinson, the creator of Free Republic.

If you haven’t been following the Tea Party express, it’s been wildly successful everywhere it’s been.

Here are our posters for today. 

My Poster which I made yesterday using GIMP, and printed with a program called Poster8:

This printed very nicely on a 30” x 38” poster board and is crystal clear. 

The best thing about this poster in my opinion is the quite unhappy look on Obama’s face.  When If ound it online, it simply screamed “pick me!  pick me!” for my poster. 

When I finished printing and assembling the poster, the wife and kids just loved it. 

When I created it, I wanted to create a simple, memorable message using “NoBama, NoCzars, NoSocialism.”   Those three lines really touch on what I’ve been hearing out and about as I listen to people talking on the train as I go to work, or when I’m out to lunch overhearing conversations in restaurants. 

The “Drain The Swamp!” message reflects my frustration not with the Democrats (I’d never vote for them) but with the Republican Party for starting the whole bail-out mess before Bush left office.  Like the Democrats, they cannot be trusted with our money!

My oldest son is a huge Glenn Beck fan. 

Frankly, I can’t stand Glenn  Beck because he gets way too emotional on his show however lately he’s done a really good job in shining the light on the Obama Administration and he’s widely credited for getting Van Jones to resign from the White House.  My oldest son’s poster reflects his thoughts and opinions on Glenn Beck and Obama’s “Czars.”  While I helped him to layout how his poster would look, I didn’t edit his content in any way.  His poster is his idea, his own words.  This is a kid who’s reading Ayn Rand at 12 and really does understand the difference between Capitalism, Socialism and Communism.

My youngest son is ten years old and is always asking what things cost.  He saves his allowance and takes on extra chores to earn money to buy the things he wants.  Part of raising a child is to teach them how to use their money wisely and to understand the true cost of things.  So when my youngest son asked me “Dad, how much will this cost me?” he was asking about Obama’s health care reform.

So we sat down and turned it into a math problem and worked on it together.  Here’s what we came up with: Obama’s health care plan will cost every man, woman and child living in this country an additional tax burden of at least $50,000 each, and that’s just for the “cost” of Obama’s proposal, it doesn’t include the interest on that money. 

When my youngest son asked me “Dad, do I have to pay that  money?” I responded yes he would.  He wasn’t happy with that answer, and his poster for today reflects his own ideas, opinions and words.

I helped him lay out what he wanted to say, and added the effects that he wanted on his poster.  The piggy bank graphic he found himself via google.

In a moment that would make any dad proud, he also asked if he could put my blog name on his poster and of course I obliged.  Of course his older brother didn’t want anything to do with having dad’s blogname on his poster, but what can you expect from an almost-teenager with his own forming opinions?

So later this morning we’re off to greet the Tea Party express just a few miles down the road from us.  The kids have been looking forward to this all week and honestly as their dad I’m proud that they’re taking such an interest in how their country works at such young ages. 

Later today I’ll post some pictures of the rally.