Reactions

In the last 48 hours I've had a number of conversations about this protest, with random people I know from, oh, the coffee shop, or conterences I've attended.

What's interesting to me is the initial reaction. In all cases, it was something along the lines "Oh crap, he's a right-wing Republican nutcase. And I thought he was normal."

Persevering, and endeavoring to understand before being understood, we'd eventually began to realize that while we might have different concerns about government spending priorities, we both had concrete objections to boneheaded government spending. And in many cases, we agreed exactly on the boneheadedness.

Point being that Republicans own the issue of tax cuts, and if you say "tax cut" to a Democrat, you get the kind of reaction Dracula gives to garlic - because for good or bad, Republicans also own a lot of other issues. But if you're willing to listen, you can all end up singing koom bay ya - no - I mean agreeing on some issues, er, boneheadedness.

This is important to bear in mind as, if this becomes a partisan thing, you immediately lose 50% of your possible support.

So, despite the name you see at the top, think ot this as the "Atlanta Taxpayer Protest Against Boneheaded Government Spending That's Going To Begger The Children" and imagine tht's not the name because, well first off, who'd ever type that URL?

But, surely that's something we can all agree on.