Sunshine Patriots

The following article was written by my old friend, Tom Macon, who is 79-years-young and recently went to a protest against big-government, held in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Where were the Sunshine Patriots?

I must admit when I heard that firearms were to be carried at the last protest and tea party, I was somewhat worried. There is always the problem of some nut opening fire on the crowd.

I am, as a citizen of Alamogordo, very proud of the way the police handled the crowd, without being a constant presence. There was the feeling they were close at hand.

Now, what are Sunshine Patriots? It was a term coined by Thomas Paine in 1776, for the patriots who were great at talking the talk, but lax when it came to walking the walk. Today’s version of the Sunshine Patriots are the people that are content to have a refrigerator with a twelve pack of beer and a good NFL game on the TV.

“Simple pleasures can’t do anything about Washington anyway!” Want to bet? The 350 Patriots on the Zoo side of the street were tired of our constitution being raped and our Bill of Rights ignored by the one party system we now have in Washington; maybe some of those patriots remembered when an entire nation was swayed by an elegant speaker. His name was Adolph Hitler and the rest is history.

Yes, there were Sunshine Patriots standing on the opposite side of the street---at most, six or eight--and I certainly would defend their right of free assembly and speech to the death.

The mathematics certainly didn’t work out for the two party system; 350 Patriots and only six or eight liberals. Those Patriots wanted to send a message to Washington that they would prefer compromise rather than confrontation, ballots not bullets.

However, if the message is ignored, then the trend could be reversed with tragic results for all concerned. As an American, I know our love for this country can be the thing that unites us. Think it over.

Tom Macon

La Luz