The Second American Revolution: How a March on 9/12 Restored My Hope

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine - 1776

Over the course of the past few months, I’ve had my fair share of hopeless moments, when I thought my voice was too small, and my cause unpopular.  A few days ago I discovered that I was far from alone, that my grievances with all levels of government were not only justified, but shared with a great many fellow Americans.  Our President may have built a political campaign on hope, but I’ve drawn my hope from something more powerful than lawn signs and bumper stickers - from the faces of countless fellow patriots, from small acts of kindness, from the very presence of Americans at what will be known as an event that sparked a revolution, and from a glimpse of an America lost in the history books.  I’d like you to read some of my thoughts on this past weekend, as I attempt to describe the profound beginning to America’s second revolution, fought not with force, but with protest, and hopefully, votes.

On April 15th, I went to my first protest in City Hall Park, NYC.  I didn’t know what to expect, for my entire life I have felt as though my political views were among a very small minority.  Between school, TV, movies, the majority of news outlets, and the discussions I’ve had with most of my friends, I had been given the impression that the vast majority of America was for a bigger government, more social services, higher taxes, and more spending.  That the poor have no choice but to be poor due to a life where society has systematically denied them the ability to improve their own life.  That the rich are in the exact opposite situation: their lives have been incredibly easy, and society has systematically hoisted them on its collective shoulders, giving them wealth in exchange for little effort, wealth which they did not deserve, and therefore should be shared with others - others who haven’t been given the same opportunities.  I’ve grown up in a generation where my friends believe they deserve a job, they deserve a college education, they deserve a car, they deserve a place to live and food to eat, and they deserve everything else that they are given, simply because they can’t imagine a way of attaining these things by any method other than being given them.  None of this has ever felt right to me.

On April 15th, I discovered that 10,000 other New Yorkers felt the exact same way, hundreds of thousands across the nation, and I was inspired.

Unfortunately, I have an education deeply rooted in math, logic, and statistics - and the left side of my brain refused to let me become too excited: hundreds of thousands of people is still a very tiny minority when compared to the population of this country.  However, I refused to believe that we were the minority.  I know enough about American history to know that Americans could never want to live in a country so badly derailed from its original purpose.  That if any small part of the American dream still existed somewhere within us, that we mustn’t accept these progressive concepts plaguing our society and infecting our government as the future, but as mistakes.

I remained active.  Had our forefathers given up on this country in the face of insurmountable odds, the greatest nation ever to grace God’s Earth would have never existed, the world would never have known that people should never fear their government, and humanity would have undoubtedly been worse off because of it - regardless of what the opposition might say.  But they didn’t give up.  They battled an empire to secure their freedom, because they were Americans.  And so are we.

On September 11th, I began my drive down to Washington D.C. with my parents, two previously politically inactive Americans who have recently been awakened by the rapid changes occurring in both government, and our society.  We traveled to our nation’s capital, not because we were told to do so, not because we particularly wanted to take a three day vacation in the midst of an economic recession, but because we had to.  There was never a question of how many people would be there, or if we should even attend this march.  We instinctively attended because it was our patriotic duty.

That evening, we went to Bullfeathers for happy hour followed by a reception sponsored by a group from Kentucky in our hotel, and met with many other concerned Americans.  Americans from all over the country.  Some of them organize local “tea party” protests, or were otherwise politically active, some were plain ol’ Americans: small business owners, retirees, and everything in between.  Their stories were unique, but their concerns the same.  Each was extremely educated on both national and local politics.  Remarkably, each and every person I spoke to shared my same concerns.  They felt the same inexplicable uneasiness towards our popular social concepts.  They shared the same interpretation of our forefathers’ intents when they wrote our founding documents.  They had the same work ethic, the same views on national security, and foreign policy.  Without ever being told these things, without being taught to think in this particular way, they all arrived at the same logical conclusions regarding the role of government, the role of the United States in world affairs, and the role of Americans.

The following day, we took our protest signs, and headed to Freedom Plaza.  We were met with what I can only describe as the most peaceful gathering of concerned, desperate, and varied Americans that I have ever seen.  These were not Republicans, Democrats, or anything in between.  I did not speak to or see a single person who claimed any particular party affiliation.  This was a gathering of citizens who recognize that the issues this country faces transcend party politics, that all parties are responsible, and that our government has been traveling down this path for far too long for it to be redeemed by any one party or politician.  This was not an anti-Obama rally, it was not a pro-Republican rally, or an anti-healthcare rally.  It had no single purpose, no single leader, and no single voice.  It was a collection of Americans from every single state in our great union who gathered to send many messages to our elected officials.  These messages could best be summed up with the following: You have gone too far.

Average Americans, from all walks of life, from every nationality, every economic class, and every political party, took planes, buses, cars, and trains to deliver their message to our government.  The event was suggested and popularized by Glenn Beck through his 9/12 Project and it appeared to be funded by FreedomWorks.  The opposition will attempt to use these facts, which I make no attempt to hide, to devalue this rally, to claim that we were organized for political reasons.  That this is a GOP movement.  I can tell you firsthand that this was not the case.  Every single Republican politician should fear their job security just as much as every single Democratic politician, because it took both parties to get our country to where it is today.  And every single person at that rally knew this truth.

Before marching, I knew that we had a large turnout, but it wasn’t until we marched to the Capitol, and the crowd grew larger and denser that I realized the magnitude of this movement.  We filled the national mall.  We packed from the Capitol lawn almost to the Washington Monument, expanding out from the mall and into the streets.  The lawn had room to walk, because police were controlling the amount of people who entered, however outside of the Capitol lawn, we were packed to the point where it was difficult to move through the crowd.  We filled the streets and we closed the highways.

We were 1 to 2 million strong.

The D.C. police do not give crowd estimates, but other estimates range from 1 to 2 million, some exceed 2 million.  The opposition are claiming around 60,000 or simply “tens of thousands”.  That is simply incorrect.  You could easily count that many people in just the pictures I took during the rally.

In an event so large, full of people who I had never met, it was amazing how friendly everyone was.  There were no enemies.  There were no political debates over petty issues.  There was an unspoken bond between each and every person, a shared sense of helplessness turned hopefulness.  As we walked through the crowds trying to find a place to rest and listen to the speakers, we’d inevitably bump in to people.  Not once did someone yell or become annoyed.  In fact, people smiled, posed for quick pictures I was taking along the way, and offered little sentiments about one of our signs.  While marching to the Capitol, two women, overhearing me talking to my mother about Ayn Rand, struck up a conversation with me about Atlas Shrugged.  They told me I had to read The 5000 Year Leap.  After a brief conversation with them about the book, I told them I would definitely buy a copy once I got home.  One of the women reached in to her bag and pulled out a copy, her personal copy.  She told me it was written in and slightly used, but that I could have it.  I can’t describe to you how much that meant to me.  For a person to so willingly offer a complete stranger such a gift takes a level of kindness that I have only seen once before in my lifetime: on September 12th, 2001.

I then realized that the purpose of this project had been fulfilled.  We truly can unite on our founding father’s core principles and values, set aside our differences, and combine our voices as not Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, but as Americans.  My hope was restored.

Every single protest sign that I read, and every single person that I spoke with, echoed my same political views.  My same concerns.  My same uneasiness.  And my same desperation.  These were not lifelong protesters.  I would venture a guess that this was the first protest for many, or that this series of “tea party” protests was their first time protesting - as it was mine.  These were Americans from all walks of life, old, young, and everything in between.  Families with children.  Disabled individuals, some in wheelchairs.  They waved countless American flags, and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags.  They took their hats off, put their hands over their hearts, and sang along with the national anthem.  They sang patriotic songs as they marched.  They smiled and chatted with fellow Americans, because they knew that they were finally doing something.  Talking to anyone long enough, you quickly realized that behind everyone’s smile was the same despair.  The same fear.  The same feeling of helplessness.  No one was told to attend this march.  Everyone just knew they had to.  It was as if everyone had awakened from their day-to-day lives, and decided that they needed to fulfill their patriotic duty.  They had to take a stand.  They had to make their voice heard.  They dropped everything to find their way to Washington.  I can’t count the amount of Americans I came across who had attended the rally alone, from all over the country.  While these patriots may have traveled alone, they certainly weren’t alone once they arrived in D.C.  Our differences didn’t matter.  There were no strangers.  We were all driven by the same unnamed duty to uphold the values and principles that our forefathers set forth.  They would be proud.

I’ll end this with something that a fellow patriot said to me at the reception on September 11th: It feels a lot like 1773, doesn’t it?

It certainly does.

If you’d like to see pictures I took at this event, go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Jimbro727/912March#

Videos to follow.