• Ricky Cain on Lansing, Michigan Tea Party

Ricky Cain doesn't seem to fit the news media's description of who attended the tea parties on April 15th. This is Cain's story of the day:

His Belief's

I am a libertarian and I voted for Barr. I'm more libertarian in a stance that is more pro state than vs. pro-government. As the general saying forgoes kind of what the protest was about; if everyone is bailing out these companies and they are printing money it contributes to inflation. I am standing against the bail-outs from my retro points. I’m not a politician, I can’t really judge...I can’t say what would be a better use of tax money, but my stance is to keep our money and let us decide where to use our tax money for the state and as individuals.

I come from a lovely state that is tax friendly. I would say in a federal sense we pay less. But, in Michigan everything is more and more tax. For instance, car insurance went up sixty percent. Jennifer Graholm, the governor of Michigan is very social program oriented. The higher taxes went to pay for her food stamps programs and the social programs that she goes for. She has increased the social programs budget and in doing so she had to increase the taxes.

Another thing, property taxes went up thirty-one percent, but yet, the value of my home went down. It was appraised at $150k two years ago and it is pry worth $90k now. Of course for me, I can understand where the property value went down, but the property taxes going up are not proportionate; incongruent.

The Lansing Tea Parties

I can tell you from me being there, the state tea party seemed like a lot of conservatives there...like a lot of Republicans there. It didn’t seem so biased as there were a lot of people who may have been Republican's and they were the ones organizing it.

The local one, by the county was organized by the county and that tea party seemed so scripted. I knew a few friends who were doing it, and you know, how you go to protest there is aliveness? The state one had more energy to it, there wasn’t that aliveness to the county, it was more scripted in a sense.

There were at least 100 people at the county tea party and I heard 3,000 to 6,000 were at Lansing, Mich. Not sure on the numbers, PJTV will be able to verify later how many. Which, getting those kinds of numbers here is amazing because this is very democratic and liberal territory.

I was surprised at the number of people who showed up. It was said that many people haven’t come out for this kind of protest since the 70s. I can’t think of anything that would have brought that many people out in the 70s around here.

About Litter?

I didn’t stay long enough for the capitol tea party to see if there was any litter left behind. There wasn't any while I was there. For the county one there wasn’t much left behind of litter, there may have been a few things left behind.

I can’t say for the state one I wasn’t there long enough I would say the atmosphere was very hospitable and friendly for some rallies they always have their mantras with is the energy i was talking about

I didn’t see any crazies, it wasn’t like anything like so anti-government they weren’t advocating anarchy

The state capitol and the county weren’t the only tea parties, either. There was one in Troy, Mich. and Taylor, Mich. They are maybe about an hour’s drive from state capital. Plus, there were seven or more little tea parties around the state capitol.

Favorite Signs

Some of them had the Obama acronyms, I took a few pics of them.

I like the "Don’t Tread on Me" the most out of them all.

Ricky’s Background

I am 23. I consider myself a computer geek or techie. I am an entrepreneur in the sense that I do my own computer business, I run a solo gig fixing computers in my little town. I can also do remote support now. I am a very a one person-minded, mellow tech guy.

Ricky Cain can be contacted at http://caintechservices.com

And, for those of you who would like to see what really happened instead of the biased ??news?? version:

Videos

For the Lansing Tea Party here are some videos I took.
When you are on the first part click the More info. I have links to part 2, 3 and 4. I must say, It wasn't excellent camera work. But, it shows how many people were there and I am sure one day, it would have historical value.

Thank you Ricky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yrPMf69bCs