Upwards of 1,000 people came out Saturday to Citizens for Liberty's Independence Day Tea Party in Rapid City.

You never know what you’re going to get for attendance at such an event when it's held on a holiday. Many people, like most of my family, were traveling out of town and didn't get back until late Saturday afternoon.  There were also something like 20,000 people up late the night before at Mount Rushmore for the fireworks, and around the time the Tea Party rally started in Memorial Park, it looked as if it might rain any moment.  Later that day, attendance was also down considerably at the Black Hills Heritage Festival, and at the Rapid City fireworks show that night, I had never seen so few people in attendance.

But plenty of freedom-loving people came out for both the sign-waving and the program.  Like the Tax Day Tea Party, people lined up along 5th Street by Memorial Park and down Omaha Street.  Despite fewer numbers at the event and of cars driving by on the road, it seemed there was even more energy and enthusiasm from both the sign-wavers and from the people driving by, waving and honking their horns.

Citizens for Liberty held a great program at the bandshell.  It started with singing some patriotic songs, then the crowd was introduced to several veterans who had been wounded in combat in service to our country.  Barb Lindberg spoke on the cap and trade global warming tax (people weren’t thrilled about that), and Don Van Etten spoke  about government health care (people didn’t like that, either).

T-shirts, bumper stickers, patriotic books and more were sold out at the table set up by Citizens for Liberty.  People donated generously to the group's efforts to educate and inform about limited government, and their plans to recruit and support limited government candidates.  Also, hundreds signed up for Citizens for Liberty's newsletter, to be alerted to big-government legislation, and to be notified of volunteer opportunities when help is needed.

It was wonderful to be around so many Americans who love their country deeply, respect their Constitution profoundly, and are committed to saving our great nation from the spending and socialist abyss.  These patriots sacrificed from family time to come on their holiday and take a stand for their country and their freedom.  

They also wanted to send a message to the socialists in Washington: America is our country, and we will not allow you to destroy it or our freedoms.

It is not in the nature of conservatives and average Americans to demonstrate and protest.  Most Americans just want to be left alone in the freedom to take care of their families and live as they choose under God.  In other words, they just want to be left alone.

But the threat to that freedom and way of life has become so large and unmistakable from our own government that most patriotic Americans realize they must take a stand before we lose all that we hold dear.

If every patriotic American will take a stand as these courageous people did, we can save our country and Constitution, and drive these socialist usurpers from office.

Let freedom ring!