Meet the Caldwell Tea Party Patriots!

"We might be starting small, but we've got Big Plans!"

Last night I hosted an 8/12 Tea Party Patriots House Party. What's that? A group of concerned citizens gathered together to learn more about the burgeoning Tea Party movement. Our goals? To restore our Constitutional Republic as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, reduce the size and scope of government, and repeal Obamacare.

We probably won't get all that done before the November election.

After briefly introducing ourselves we watched the Tea Party Movie.

It's a fascinating look into how the Tea Party movement flourished in such a short time. And it sparked some pretty interesting discussions.

Most of us agreed that our nation was on the wrong path. I have a diverse group of friends, and I purposely invited 2 "moderates" to the gathering as a sort of sanity check. And I have to say that although they did not agree 100% with the "official" Tea Party line, they were receptive to some of our ideals.

Limiting government for instance. Government intrudes far too much into our daily lives. Everyone agreed that was bad. One of the key points from the movie was for us to get involved in local government. Attend meetings. Write letters. Hold politicians feet to the fire!

Caldwell Council candidate Tom O'Donnell was one of the attendees. He said the council welcomes public participation. "Come to the meetings!"

It was Tom who put the Tea Party bug in my ear a few months back. Then some folks around town started talking about it and my name came up because of this blog. A few phone calls later I'm ordering the Tea Party Patriots DVD and organizing a Facebook group for the Caldwell Tea Party. Email invitations went out, and a dozen people showed up at my house on a Thursday night.

Hey, I just thought of something. Does this make me a "Community Organizer"? I "organized" some members of my "community", right?

Wysocki 2012 anyone?

We hope to expand our base into all of West Essex (Caldwell, Essex Fells, Fairfield, North Caldwell, Roseland, Verona, and West Caldwell). A member of the Essex County Tea Party also joined us. They're holding a meeting on Monday August 23^rd at the Town Pub in Bloomfield. Yes, our two groups will work together.

Please join our Caldwell Tea Party Facebook Group to stay abreast of our activities.

Two things action items came out of our initial meeting. First we're going to join forces with Project Main Street to help implement traffic calming measures in town. Everyone committed to showing up at the next council meeting to voice our support for Councilman Norton's Four Point Plan.

And second we're going to create, and post online, a voter guide for the November election. We'll rate each candidate for office (local, county, state, and national) based on their adherence to our ideals of limited government and individual liberty.

We can see November from our houses.

Posted at 16:29 by Chris Wysocki   [/tea_party]   Comments | Perm Link |
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