Vince Coglianese has the highlights of Wetumpka [Alabama] Tea Party President Becky Gerritson’s testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee here.
The following is her complete statement, courtesy of the Right Scoop.
“In Wetumpka, we are patriotic Americans. We peacefully assemble. We petition our government. We exercise the right to free speech. And we don’t understand why the government tried to stop us.
“I’m not here as a serf or a vassal. I’m not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman. Wife, mother, and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my wellbeing and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty, and you have faltered…
“What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama is un-American. It isn’t a matter of firing or arresting individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should, in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our masters. And they are mistaken.
“I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to protect and preserve the America that I grew up in. The America that people crossed oceans and risked their lives to become a part of. And I’m terrified it is slipping away.
“Thank you.”
It’s probably way too early to call this an important moment in American history. I don’t care.
Here we have a woman who most of our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media and the Democratic Party (PTR) would consider “ordinary.” But she just did something extraordinary. She explained — eloquently, in great detail, and with an entirely suitable sense of outrage and sadness — her mistreatment at the hands of the United States government. A government that is not only irrevocably bloated and inefficient, but has now been proven to be actively hostile to dissenters against the current administration.
And more importantly, she looked the representatives of that government straight in the eye and reminded them of a simple fact that continues to elude them: They work for us.
Thank you, Mrs. Gerritson. Now get ready for the left to try to intimidate you into silence.
Again.
Update: Now here’s a good idea.