Tax Day Tea Party
Ft. Collins, CO
April 15th, 2009

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On Tax Day 2009 thousands of people gathered to attend Tea Parties across the United States. The purposes were to protest the high taxation, the uncontrolled spending, and what many people see as a move to Socialism by the new administration. I took my camera and kept an eye out for troublemakers, but there weren't any. In fact, reports said that the police enjoyed the protest because there was no violence at all--a very peaceful protest. This is my photo essay.

This first block of pictures were taken as people gathered before the start. The city hall is in the center of the block, and this park area is the northeastern quarter, about the size of a football field. During the speeches, the speakers said they estimated 2,000 people were in attendance. It was standing room only.

There was a playground area with a slide. Several people were climbing to the top of the slide to take pictures, so I did too. Then I tried to stitch the pictures together into this panorama. You can tell where the pictures come together because the sky is a little darker in places.

These 4 pictures are from the opening statements by the organizers. We did the Pledge of Allegiance.

The first set of guest speakers were Keith & Gale who are morning hosts on talk radio KCOL in Ft Collins. They had several things to say about the taxation and the pork spending bill. I haven't listened much to their show but I always turn to that station to catch Rush at 10 am MT and then Hannity from 1 pm to 4 pm.

These last pictures are the guest speakers. Many of them were conservative politicians making statements about the recession that has resulted from this high taxation and the pork spending going on in the new administration. The last picture is the organizers making their closing statements.


After all the speeches, all the people marched a block over to College Ave and marched about 6 blocks to the south, crossed the street and marched back. I saw my friend Ken Snyder so we walked together and had a lot to talk about. The police stopped traffic for the group. The only problems were a few college kids who didn't know what the march was about but wanted to yell a few cusswords anyway. Everything ended by about 2 pm.
One of the comments after the Tea Party was that the police really like conservative protests because they don't have to pick up trash or clean up the mess, compared to liberal protests where they have to take out the broken down tree branches and haul away the burned out cars.
After seeing the new administration violating the Constitution, it was refreshing to be with all these people who are voicing their opposition. There are more tea parties planned and I intend to attend several of them.