Tag Archives: Westport Tea

Having A Tea Party

I despise the Tea Party movement.  I think it is negative, simplistic, and dangerous for our country.

But this is an all-purpose blog.  So I’ll pass along this information, and let my “06880” readers decide if they want to go:

Westport Tea is sponsoring a “Rally for America” today (11 a.m.-noon) in downtown Westport.

It’s billed as a “pre-election day gathering for all citizen-voters who believe in responsible government and true representation and accountability by those elected.  The rally will bring attention to the importance of voting by citizens concerned with restoring fiscal and political balance to the U.S. Congress and the CT General Assembly.”

The site of the rally is the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memorial Bridge.  For nearly 50 years, Ruth Steinkraus Cohen was a tireless advocate for the United Nations, and a volunteer for world peace.

The Tea Party movement verges close to nativism.  The irony of rallying on a bridge named for a woman who believed in globalism is spectacular.

Is this a great country or what?

The Tea Party -- and all Westporters -- enjoy watching American flags fly on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memorial Bridge. (Photo by Lynn U. Miller)

Don’t Tread On Them

The Westport Tea meeting Monday night at the Westport Public Library received plenty of attention — before the event, and after.

Flying much lower under the radar was an event last month — also at the library — sponsored by the Fairfield County Committee of Safety.

According to their website, it is

a non-partisan, grass-roots advocacy organization active throughout the 50 United States.  Its purpose is to exercise the freedoms of speech, association, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in order to educate Americans about, and mobilize them for political action around, the fundamental principles of liberty and self-government set out in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

So far so good.  Now read on:

All too many rogue public officials in the General Government in Washington, D.C., have usurped powers never delegated to them by the Constitution, thereby violating their oaths or affirmations to support the Constitution, undermining the federal system, and depriving the States and the people of powers and rights reserved to them by the Constitution.

Recognizing the danger this situation poses, a majority of the States have reasserted their sovereignty through resolutions under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Although this a good first step, further action is necessary to enforce these declarations.

In particular, the States and the people must take firm control of the two most important powers of sovereignty: the Power of the Purse—through establishment in each State of an economically sound and constitutionally proper alternative currency based on silver and gold; and the Power of the Sword—through revitalization of the Militia of the several States along strict constitutional lines.

Committees of Safety intends, by means of peaceful mass grass-roots political activism, to restore the Power of the Purse and the Power of the Sword to the American people through their State governments.

Central to this plan is an Economic Security Bill through which each State can adopt an alternative State currency of silver and gold, managed and protected through a revitalized State Militia, in order to protect the State’s governmental finances, and eventually the State’s entire private economy, against a collapse of the Federal Reserve System.  The establishment of economic security is the necessary first step in a comprehensive strategy that aims at returning the provision of all “national security” to local control by the people themselves.

There are 32 members — or, as they call themselves, “Constitutional Activists” — in the Fairfield County group.  Their next meeting is Saturday June 26 (2:30 p.m.):  a showing of the film “Don’t Tread On Me:  Rise of the  Republic.”

The website says of the movie:

From the Tea Party Movement to State Legislators, the American people are drawing a line in the sand.  On what side of it will you stand?  Has the government our Founders created been forgotten by Washington DC?  Is a Patriot Uprising ready to capture the spirit of 1776?

“Don’t Tread On Me: Rise of the Republic” gives the viewer a look into the movements, mindset, and legislation that will catapult the “Great Restoration” into households across America.

The Committee of Safety will screen “Don’t Tread On Me” at the Westport Public Library.  No word from them yet on whether that’s an institution they’d also like to overthrow.

Tea Time In Westport

Nearly 90 people jammed the Westport Library’s McManus Room for last night’s 1st Westport Tea meeting.

But anyone looking for red meat was disappointed.  Organizer Dean Slack served up mostly appetizers.

The 10-year Westporter — a self-described businessperson with no previous experience in politics — returned over and over to 3 main themes:

We need officers.  We need volunteers.  We need money.

Organizers of last night's Westport Tea meeting asked that faces of attendees not be photographed.

Westport Tea, he emphasized, is a non-profit association.  It’s not a political party, or a “Tea Party PAC.”  Westport Tea is a social organization that educates voters.

Some of the crowd stirred when Slack touched on Westport Tea’s 3 main principles:  fiscal responsibility, limited government and capitalism.  They wanted to vent about everything wrong with America today — I guess that would be fiscal irresponsibility, intrusive government, and socialism.

But Slack wasn’t going there.  He returned again and again to the need for officers, volunteers and money.

If the 1773 Tea Party organizing committee held meetings like last night’s, Westporters today would be hoping England wins the World Cup.

Slack differentiated Westport Tea from the national movement of a similar name.  “This is not the fanatical Tea Party thing you see on TV,” he said.

That led to a brief discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the TP name.  They’re both about the same things, Slack said — “less government, less taxes, free markets, an emphasis on the Constitution” — but then it was back to the need for officers and volunteers.

And money.

“Democracy,” Slack said, “is not free.”

It was not Paul Revere.

It was not Rand Paul.

It was not Ayn Rand.

It was Tea time, Westport-style.

(For more information on Westport Tea, call Dean Slack at 203-226-2619, or email: WestportTea@gmail.com.)