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Snookums and I went to the FreedomFest 2009 that had been advertised on KCMO 710 here in Kansas City. I went because, you know, I'm apparently a right-wing wacko. Snookums went because she's married to a right-wing wacko and it was a chance to sit outside in the sun for a few hours and read her book.

The Pig Guys

The pigs say: "That's All Folks," "American Capitalist Pig" (standing up) and "No Socialist Pigs" (belly-up). More follows--click "read more." We pulled up at about a quarter to 10 in the morning, and things were still being set up. We were there early enough to get good parking. Later, we saw a steady trickle of people walking across Brush Creek on the Oak Street bridge, so we had primo parking.

It took a while for the thing to get rolling. This is the first event of its kind that I'd ever attended--I don't know if a slow start is par for the course, or if it was the (admitted) inexperience of the organizers--the Political Chips, Jason Powers and Alex Poulter.

Stigall, looking like he usually sounds on the radio

The Political Chips Guys aka the MIT Boyz. I don't know what they sound like--yet.

The crowd was good, but I suspect that it was smaller than the organizers had hoped for. I'm nowhere near anal enough to sit down with a picture and count all the heads to get a halfway accurate count, but I'd guess somewhere between one thousand and two thousand people came out on what turned out to be an extremely nice Saturday noontime in Theis Park (also known as Volker Park) just off the Country Club Plaza in mid-town Kansas City.

The crowd in the ampitheater

The crowd milling above the ampitheater

There were a number of booths set up--various people running for office, some Ayn Randers, and some other right/libertarian type activist organizations. Snookums was disappointed that there wasn't any good giveaway stuff. We on the right really need to get better at that whole astroturfing thing, I guess, starting with finding somebody to pony up some money for some cool chotchkies to fool and persuade the masses to do our evil bidding. Ha ha ha, he laughed evilly, or something like that. The speakers were really pretty good. Melanie Owen was an immigrant from the Philippines, who told tales of what things were like under Marcos. She said when she heard that Obama wanted to create a civilian organization as powerful as the military (yes, those are his words) she said "oh-oh, that's exactly what Marcos and every other dictator does. That told me that Obama is a dictator." (A paraphrase, but pretty close to what she actually said.)

Melanie Owen

Angelo Mino immigrated from Ecuador, and told the story of how he rose from dumpster-diving for thrown away food to feed his family to being an executive in a food service company. And he didn't want that American Dream taken away from him, and he resented Nancy Pelosi advocating that the people who didn't come here legally (the way he did) getting money from the government.

Angelo Mino

Next came a couple of speakers on health care. Beverly Gossage is director of HSA Benefits Consulting and a health consultant and research fellow of the Show Me Institute here in Missouri. She sounds like she knows her stuff.

Beverly Gossage

Michael Cannon should need no introduction to anybody who's seriously studied health care in the country. He's the director of health policy studies for the Cato Institute. He's one of the heavy hitters in health care policy reform--or he would be, if we could somehow convince the left to stop shouting slogans and spouting inaccuracies long enough to listen to rational argument.

Michael Cannon

The final speaker, the keynote speaker, would have brought the house down, if we'd actually been in a house. He goes by the name of Apostle Claver, and he's a good old-fashioned Southern preacher from Houston. All I know is that if he was leading a church here in Kansas City, I'd go just for the entertainment value alone, let alone the message--which was a good one.

Apostle Claver

I've got to admit, the whole thing was pretty uplifting. It was fun, a bit inspiring, and nice to see that I wasn't the only guy who thought the way I do, sitting here typing this out in the den of my basement. The crowd was about as intimidating and vicious as any Independence Day parade gathering--lots of flags and red, white, and blue--along with a good number of signs and Gadsden Flags.

Oh, about some of those signs, people. Find somebody who can spell to edit your stuff, OK?

I only saw one counterprotester--some guy standing at the back of the crowd with a "Tax the Rich" sign. I wanted to go over to him, hold my hand out and say "Hi, I'm the rich. I'd appreciate it if you stopped pointing your gun at me." but I was running around taking pictures--on a Mission, don't you know. There might have been others, but if there were SEIU union thugs there looking for trouble, I certainly didn't see them. The only other Stupid Leftie moment of the day I experienced was when leaving the FreedomFest, we were walking behind another couple, and heard--apparently shouted from a car racing down Rockhill Road, some female voice shouting "Get out of this country!" I thought that was pretty funny, but it couldn't match the top moment of the day for me.

Here it is--proof that I have an incredibly warped sense of humor, but if you've made it this far, you deserve an "Easter Egg." The Surreal Moment Of The Day came when the Battle Hymn of the Republic was playing over the loudspeakers, and this group of geese marched up the bank from Brush Creek towards wherever geese go when they march up the bank from Brush Creek. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway . . .