The United States was founded on a strong tradition of protest, and the founders thought that tradition was so important, they protected it in the First (first!) Amendment. Two hundred and thirty-five years later, that tradition is alive and well. Whether you choose to protest with the folks who Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party Patriots or the Rally to Restore Sanity, the Constitution protects your right to make your voice heard!

That’s why we’ve just released (with a big assist from the ACLU of Massachusetts), a new Know Your Rights: Demonstrations and Protests, explaining your right to freedom of speech, to peaceable assembly, and — oh yes — petition your government for a redress of grievances (‘cause they sure didn’t dress them very well the first time)! The guide covers such topics as where you can march, when the government can require permits, whether you can distribute leaflets and more.

Armed with this new resource and our already popular Know Your Rights: What to Do if You’re Stopped by Police, you’re ready for any popular movement, whether it’s a million man march or just you and your friend shouting at cars from a street corner. We’ll be releasing additional resources for protestors over the next week, so keep your browser tuned to this blog and remember: Dissent IS Patriotic! Read more at www.aclu.org

By contrast, the TEA Party is rooted in the founding principles of America and the rule of law. While members hold diverse views on many issues, they are united in a desire for limited government, a free-market economy and fiscal responsibility. TEA Party affiliates believe the United States should not be divided by class, but united by the Constitution that guarantees individual liberty and underlies economic success.

TEA Party events are civil affairs. Organizers get permits and cooperate with police. They respect the rule of law and provide their own food, water, medical care and bathrooms. No one gets arrested and no property is damaged. And attendees pick up their trash.

The TEA Party holds Republicans and Democrats accountable. They opposed the Wall Street bailout, handouts to GE and Solyndra, the insurance mandates of Obamacare, and choosing winners in the automobile industry. And TEA Party affiliates are resolute in electing Constitution-based fiscal conservatives to political office. Read more at www.postindependent.com

The “Occupy Wall Street” protest that has been going on for nearly a month and is spreading to several cities across the United States has drawn comparisons to the Tea Party.

Well, the Tea Party has one emphatic word for that: “Stop!”

According to a report in the New York Daily News, the Tea Party Patriots, the largest group in the movement, is not happy with the comparisons. In fact, in a statement by co-founders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, they say there should be no comparison at all:

The Occupy Wall Streeters — or 99%ers — would likely argue that they’re not interested in having the government “take care of them.” Rather, they are pushing for quality job opportunities and a tax code that doesn’t favor the rich. Read more at www.opposingviews.com

SPIEGEL: The world is looking at Washington and sees gridlock and chaos. How much have the negotiations over the United States’ debt ceiling hurt America’s standing in the world?

Meckler: Saying that these debates have hurt our image is absurd. What you currently see in Washington is one of the most responsible debates ever about the size and scope of government. The world should look at what is going on in the United States as a model for what should happen in all countries.

SPIEGEL: We look at it and see a Congress held hostage by a small group of radical Tea Party members unwilling to agree to any budget compromise and risking a US default.

Meckler: What do you mean by “a small group?” Forty-one percent of voters in the last US election said they agreed with Tea Party values. And the primary values of the Tea Party are about fiscal responsibility. Read more at www.spiegel.de

What does the Tea Party want? As the debt ceiling debate rages in Washington, that should be the central question in U.S. political discourse. After all, it is the rise of the Tea Party that revitalized the Republican Party in 2009 and gave it the muscle to deliver a “shellacking” to the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. And it is the radicalism of the Tea Party and the freshman legislators it elected that is often blamed for the uncompromising stance of the Republicans in the current budget negotiations.

That’s why “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” a recent study of the Tea Party by Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, and Vanessa Williamson and John Coggin, two graduate students, is so important. An expanded version of the paper, which appeared this spring in the journal Perspectives on Politics, will be published as a book by the Oxford University Press later this year.

The usual assumption of the news media elites is that the Tea Party’s worldview is inchoate or just plain uninformed. “I think the pundit class tends to treat popular ideologies as products of ignorance,” Ms. Skocpol told me. But when she and her colleagues delved deeper, including distributing questionnaires to Tea Party activists and interviewing many of them, the scholars found that, “Rather than assume ignorance, we should recognize that what appear to be contradictory or uninformed views of federal government programs make better sense once we understand how Tea Party activists view themselves in relation to other groups in society.” Read more at www.nytimes.com

The Tea Party movement is a populist, conservative/libertarian, political movement inthe United States that grew throughout 2009 into a series of locally and nationallycoordinated protests. The protests were partially in response to several Federal laws:the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery andReinvestment Act of 2009,and a series of healthcare reform bills.

Because the Tea Party’s most noted national figures include highly seasonedRepublican politicians such as Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, nearly all Tea Partycandidates have run as Republicans, and almost 80% of Tea Partiers considerthemselves to be Republicans, critics have suggested that the “movement” is not a newpolitical group, but simply a marketing tool for traditional Republican candidates andpolicies.

ea Party agenda“Contract from America”The “Contract from America” was the idea of Houston-based lawyer, Ryan Hecker. Hestated that he developed the concept of creating a grassroots call for reform prior tothe April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies. To get his idea off the ground, he launcheda website, ContractFromAmerica.com, which encouraged people to offer possible planksfor the contract.1.Identify constitutionality of every new law2.Reject emissions trading3.Demand a balanced federal budget4.Simplify the tax system5.Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality6.Limit annual growth in federal spending7.Repeal the healthcare legislation passed on March 23, 20108.Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy9.Reduce Earmarks10.Reduce Taxes Read more at www.scribd.com

One of the main forces behind the Tea Party movement and the disgust that many Americans have with the federal government is its supreme arrogance and its constant unwanted and unwarranted power grabs. This is one of the things that the American people really need to put their attention toward reversing.

All might not be lost, though. There is a growing movement among the various states to begin to reapply their 10th Amendment rights.

The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.“ States are beginning to find a renewed interest in this clause. Read more at americandaily.com

Tea Party groups push ‘Atlas Shrugged’

Tea Party groups are talking up a new movie version of Atlas Shrugged, based on the Ayn Rand novel about a dystopian United States that collapses as government asserts control.

The movie will debut in theaters on April 15. Tax Day has been a focal point for the burgeoning Tea Party movement, whose political mantra calls for small government and low taxes.

Atlas Shrugged was Rand’s fourth and last novel. The writer and her philosophy have had an impact on many political and business leaders, including former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan and current House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Read more at content.usatoday.com