How Important Is The Tea Party Movement? Answer: Very!

The Staten Island Tea Party held its first Town Hall meeting Saturday and I was asked if I would be a guest speaker by one of the organizers. At first I declined because I am a writer not a speechmaker and besides that I find this type of duty very stressful. I dreaded I might end up like that CBS reporter at the Grammys telecast who was originally thought to have suffered a stroke on camera because her speech became garbled and incomprehensible. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that this is no longer the time for business as usual. I can no longer hide behind my words instead of joining those doing the heavy lifting of saving the country because make no mistake about it - the country is in deep doo-doo land. Pardon the expression but the word "trouble" seems too inadequate to describe our situation.

The catering hall where the meeting was to take place was filled with ordinary citizens not the crazed extremists and racists that Nancy Pelosi and the mainstream media are determined to depict as our stereotype. Yes, there were people of color and from every walk of life although I did not see anyone from the "fabulously wealthy benefiting from the tax breaks for the rich."

Although I was still quite nervous I was comforted by the warm reception I received from attendees who were familiar with my columns and so striding to the podium that lacked a teleprompter I gave my short speech:

"I decided to speak here today because I believe that our country is in big trouble and that the tea party movement may be the only way we have to get our country back on the track that the Founding Fathers set out for us.

"The entire Constitution of the United States is a relatively small document that can be printed up into a small booklet and carried in your pocket. This is the supreme law of the land. It is a small document because the Founders wanted the government to be small. Yet the healthcare bill was over 2500 pages long and nobody even read it - not even the Senator who drafted it. Yet it passed. How was that even possible?

"The federal tax code is over 6700 pages of rules and regulations and penalties. Nobody in Congress has any idea what's in these pages except when they want to penalize someone for tax evasion.

"The Constitution is the entire framework of our system of government and our representatives swear an oath to protect and defend it when they take office. But they forget one thing that the framers insisted on. That we the people, you and I, are the government.

"Too many politicians think they know how to run this country better. They think they know what's good for us because they're smarter than the masses and in many cases they've been right - until now. Now they have you to deal with you and they are doing everything possible to demonize the tea party. The left wing bloggers send in infiltrators with racist signs so the mainstream media can broadcast a negative impression to their viewers.

"That is why we have to be very aware of anyone who shows up with signs that do not represent what our mission is all about and that is to shrink this massive, bloated bureaucracy that is swallowing up our economy.

"The fact is our government is filthy rich but it has taken over areas that should be governed by the states. There are whole agencies that should be demolished and if they were we'd have a smaller government with a budget surplus.

"How did the government get so huge? It's our fault. We didn't pay attention. We didn't care that there are 35,000 registered lobbyists spending millions of dollars per congressmen to get the laws that will benefit their clients not the American people. We can no longer sit at home and hope someone else will fix this for us. It's our job.

"Next year we'll be voting for a president and we need to pick someone who will do everything possible to shrink the government down to the bare essentials and we need to provide them with a congress to support that mission. That means no RINOs. Above all, we must pick the candidate with one overriding quality - a fervent love of our country and our core values and a determination to keep us safe.

"Thank You"

The audience seemed to enjoy the speech and even gave me a standing ovation, bless their hearts but one thing became abundantly clear to me that day and that is I am a tea party member and proud to be one.

Unfortunately I had to leave the event early and could not stay for the Q&A segment. I would have liked to elaborate on my speech in case someone had asked which agencies I thought should be abolished. That's an easy one: Housing and Urban Development, Department of Education, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Department of Energy. All of these are boondoggles which have devoured funding with little to show for it. Just about every other agency could be trimmed significantly. Even the Defense Department has wasteful expenditures however that does not mean I'm for defense cuts for the military. Our National Security should be the number one priority for the federal government. Veterans deserve many more benefits than they receive now.

I have always been a registered Republican much to the dismay of my family but I have always worked for Democratic candidates when I agreed with their agenda. That has not been the case for many, many years because it's been hijacked by the socialists. I am not in favor of establishing a third party but that is not what the Tea Party is all about. What I would like is for the Republican Party to develop a Tea Party mentality instead of business as usual, compromising and settling for earmarks instead of fighting tooth and nail to cut spending.

In other words, the GOP needs to get back to basics; to the party of Abraham Lincoln and to the party that preserved the union. God bless America.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com