April 15, 2009

My running tally of Tar Heel Tea Parties

Posted by John Hood at 9:30 PM

I still haven’t yet heard from all of the dozens of Tea Party protests held across North Carolina today, but my preliminary count as of 9:30pm is that at least 15,000 North Carolinians participated — including several thousand each in Raleigh and Charlotte, 1,500 in Greensboro, and around 1,000 each in Asheville, Winston-Salem, and several other cities. Even smaller communities such as Hillsborough, Goldsboro, Lincolnton, Kill Devil Hills, Newton, and Mooresville had crowds estimated in the several hundreds.

I'll post a harder count in the morning, relying as much as possible on external counts by local police or the news media. 

UPDATE: Just got reports in from Wilmington, New Bern, and Jacksonville. So up that statewide count to more than 16,500.

FINAL UPDATE: After scanning the Thursday morning press coverage and filling in the remaining blanks, it is safe to say that the statewide count exceeded 17,500. 

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A gentle reminder to those paying-taxes-is-patriotic, gosh-I-wish-I-could-pay-more leftists whose anger du jour is about the tax protests

Posted by Jon Sanders at 8:22 PM

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• Every county and school district in North Carolina will accept voluntary contributions.
• Few people donate to Wake County schools or county programs.
• Most donations are to specific schools and county programs, such as the K-9 unit or EMS.
• Contribution patterns reveal that most taxpayers prefer not to give more money to county government and the public school system.

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Over here, we know the difference between stated preference and revealed preference.

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UNC Must Take Action

Posted by Daren Bakst at 8:02 PM

I was in Goldsboro today and many people were talking about the violence at UNC over Tancredo speaking at the institution.  I just heard about it today.

For tons of information on this embarassing debacle, visit The Right Angles site.

So far, from everything I've read, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp has said nothing of substance about the violence (except that he's disappointed).

Thorp should be more than disappointed  He should be mad and should apologize to Tancredo immediately.  UNC should determine who the students were that were involved and deal with them appropriately.  I'm not necessarily calling for draconian actions against the students, but reasonable action.

If something isn't done about what happened beyond this pathetic response, Thorp should be fired.  Simple as that.

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From the Tea Party in Fayetteville

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 6:04 PM

Watch a 5:40 video of the two Fayetteville tea parties, including remarks from Terry Stoops, by clicking play below.

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From the Tea Party in Gastonia

Posted by John Hood at 5:49 PM

About 100 people attended the Tea Party protest this afternoon in Gastonia, reports the Gaston Gazette. News 14 Carolina has posted some video of the event. 

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From the Tea Party in Fayetteville

Posted by John Hood at 4:31 PM

The Fayetteville Observer is reporting that about 400 folks participated in Tax Day Tea Party protests downtown. JLF’s Terry Stoops was one of the speakers at the Fayetteville event.

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From the Tea Party in Charlotte

Posted by John Hood at 4:23 PM

WBTV in Charlotte is reporting that “thousands” of local residents participated in the Tea Party protest there this afternoon. It just wrapped up a little while ago. JLF’s Roy Cordato was one of the speakers at the event in the Queen City. 

UPDATE: The Charlotte Observer puts the Tea Party count there at “more than 2,000.” 

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MSM report on tea parties

Posted by David N. Bass at 4:18 PM

Is this on the news or editorial page?

Silly me. It's the New York Times. There is no difference.

One choice quote:

All of these tax day parties seemed less about revolution and more about group therapy.

Please turn off your "seemer" and report the news.

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From the Tea Party in Winston-Salem

Posted by John Hood at 4:09 PM

The Winston-Salem Journal is reporting that more than 900 folks participated in the noontime Tea Party in the Winston Square Park. JLF’s Becki Gray was one of the speakers. 

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From the Tea Party in Goldsboro

Posted by John Hood at 3:59 PM

The Goldsboro News & Argus is reporting that about 300 people came out to the noontime Tea Party at City Hall. JLF’s own agitator-in-residence, Daren Bakst, was on hand for the festivities.

UPDATE: News 14 Carolina has posted some video from the Goldsboro Tea Party.

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On the scene report from Greensboro

Posted by John Hood at 3:49 PM

I attended the Greensboro Tea Party protest at noon. The crowd began to swell by about 11:30am. Lots of homemade signs, many of them biting or funny. For example:

“Protect My Country — We'll Do The Rest” 

“Uncle Sam’s Pork Stinks”

“TEA: Taxes Enough Already” 

“Born Free, Taxed to Death” 

“I'm 12 with a 160k debt” (held up by a kid)

At around noon, the event began with the pledge of allegiance, followed by remarks from each of the three local volunteers who organized the Greensboro event.

I estimated the crowd at peak at around 1,200. So did the Greensboro News & Record, which has already posted a breaking news story on the event. A key bit:

The messages of those in the Greensboro crowd ranged from lowering taxes to rage at corporate bailouts, but most in the largely conservative crowd said they thought the key problem was too much government.

"The list of our grievances is very complex," said Gerald Hutchinson, a management consultant who spoke to the crowd from a stage set for the occasion. "It's not easy to reduce it to a single poster board."

Many tried anyway.

"We Need Big Jobs, Not Big Government" and "Who's Going to Bail Out the Taxpayer?" read the picket signs of those filing into the plaza for the noon rally. Some families brought their small children, who carried signs reading "Keep Your Hands Away from My Piggy Bank" and "Honk if My Daddy is Paying Your Mortgage."

A few in the crowd carried pitchforks and dressed in Revolutionary War costumes.

"I believe that we now have a tyrannical government," said D'oyle Moore, a professional historical reenactor and Baptist preacher. Moore came dressed as Greensboro's namesake, General Nathaniel Greene.

Moore did look the part, sword and all. I'll post more comments later, as will other JLF folks in attendance at some of the other three dozen tea parties across North Carolina today.

UPDATE: Rhino Times editor John Hammer and Greensboro blogger Ed Cone counted 1,500 in attendance. Ed has more here.

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We Don't Negotiate With Pirates

Posted by Jenna Ashley Robinson at 11:45 AM

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Competitiveness is good ...

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 09:41 AM

... except in the warped world of government largesse.

"Under the Dome" tells us this morning that North Carolina has had the most competitive U.S. Senate races since 1990.

This is a good thing, for the most part. But when it comes to passing out the federal pork, it tends to help to have a Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, or Ted Stevens. With decades of uninterrupted service in the nation's capital, those fellows built up the seniority that helped them attract a lot of federal taxpayer dollars.

Andy Taylor made this point in a recent Carolina Beat.

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Panic of 1819 and our current crisis

Posted by George Leef at 09:12 AM

The United States suffered its first economic crisis in 1819, after more than two centuries of settlement in North America without one -- despite the existence of unregulated capitalism!

What was going on? As this article explains, the Panic of 1819 was due to government inflation of the money supply, the doing of the Bank of the United States. Murray Rothbard (who wrote his dissertation on the Panic of 1819) argued that ALL of our panics, recessions, depressions have been rooted in inflation. Our present crisis is no different. Inflation inevitably leads to bad investments that depend on artificially cheap money and credit.

Statists like Obama want us to think that recessions are due to capitalism, but they are actually due to the government's interference with it.

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Real tax reform would help

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:11 AM

As N.C. Senate leaders prepare to unveil some of their ideas for reforming the state's tax system, Roy Cordato urges a focus on real reform in today's News & Observer.

Roy explored these ideas in much more detail in his most recent Macon Series research report, summarized here.

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A behavioral economist explains his ideas

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:05 AM

The latest Newsweek features an article from a leader within this school of thought, Richard Thaler at the University of Chicago. Among its highlights:

Traditional economists bestow upon humans the mind of a computer and the willpower of a saint; I like to call these imaginary creatures Econs. These Econs have no difficulty saving because they rationally calculate how much wealth they need for retirement, reduce their consumption accordingly and then invest optimally. Econs never splurge or speculate. But the world is not populated by Econs—and if we understand how humans really behave, we can come up with ways to get them saving again.

Notice that Thaler’s approach seems to imply that humans would be better off if enlightened experts pointed the way for them to behave more like Econs. Those enlightened experts doubtless know the best course for everyone to follow.

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Think the Obama administration will display …

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:03 AM

Perhaps he should chat with John Christy, Roy Spencer, or Richard Lindzen.

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Fairness misdefined

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:02 AM

Men, the theory goes, prefer their law with rigid rules, clear lines and neutral principles; women prefer to look at the totality of the circumstances and favor what Gilligan calls an "ethic of care" over an "ethic of rights." So, for example, feminists argue that O'Connor's preference for flexible standards regarding abortion (or for nonbelievers in cases about religion) reflect a softer, more "relational" approach to the law, while Justice Antonin Scalia's emphasis on unchanging rules and crisp legal principles is, fundamentally, a guy thing.

In this interpretation, fairness seems to entail turning over legal decisions to wise overseers who will use their “ethic of care” to decide outcomes of particular disputes. That’s quite different from real fairness, which entails setting ground rules and enforcing them, while allowing change to occur through clear, legally prescribed processes.

It’s a fundamental tenet of Scalia’s originalism.

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Today's Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:58 AM

Today's Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Karen Welsh's report on President Obama's support for charter schools and the likely impact of that support on North Carolina's charter school cap.

John Hood's Daily Journal dissects the facts and figures of North Carolina's agricultural economy.

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