Davenport Tea Party

A crowd of as many as 500 angry, but well-behaved citizens gathered at the corner of 4th and Main Streets in downtown Davenport Iowa to mark this tax-filing day of 2009. Most carried hand-made signs and a few waved traditional “Don’t Tread On Me” and large American flags. There were no speakers or organized activities, but while most of the crowd milled around on one or another of the corners, two groups of 20-30 people started chanting and marching around the intersection. It was typical of this largely conservative-oriented crowd that the marchers only crossed with the lights and obeyed all traffic signals. These are not the right-wing extremists that DHS warned us about.

I liked this sign best

The local news media was on hand but didn’t stay long when it became apparent that violence was unlikely. The only signs I saw of counterprotesters were one brave jackass yelling down from the safety of a fifth-story window and one motorist flipping off the gathering. Many, perhaps as much as a third of the passing cars honked their horns and/or gave thumbs-up signals in support of the occasion. (In all honesty, it did seem that I was seeing some of the same vehicles more than once.)

By 1:30 much of the crowd had drifted off, many explaining that they had to get back to work. Protesting is fine, but unlike leftist rent-a-mobs, the people who were at this event have better things to do.