He must be so proud

Libertarians, anti-income-taxers, Barney Frank haters, birthers, objectivists, Reagan lovers, Sarah Palin fans, Oath Keepers and gun owners descended on Christopher Columbus Park this Independence Day to vow to retake America from the the jack-booted heel of socialized medicine and pollution caps, or something, in yet another Tea Bagging.

Most of the 300 or 400 protesters were from out of state, but at-large City Council candidates Sean Ryan and Doug Bennett also attended. Bennett, in fact, was the first speaker of the day, moving further away from his Republican roots by complaining about tax-and-spend "Republicrats" who are putting us deeper into a depression. I ran into him before the speechifying; he said that while he might not agree with everything the protesters said, he did agree the income tax was unconstitutional, because the founding fathers didn't include it in the Constitution.

Girly men can't appreciate a pit bull with lipstick:

There were a fair number of mostly young Ayn Rand fans, holding signs with slogans like "Selfishness IS a virtue, Mr. President."

Ooh, clever: See how much distress the country is in?

True confession time: I managed to embarrass the kidlet at Quincy Market, because as the assembled throngs moved through the market area toward the park, I started yelling "BAR-NEY FRANK! BAR-NEY FRANK!" and "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!" at them. My father, up for the weekend, quietly suggested that yelling stuff like that at beefy shaved-head guys who were bigger than me was perhaps not the best of ideas. The worst I got, however, were looks of disgust. And later, both my wife and father had quite nice discussions with some of the out-of-towners at the park.