A story that needs to make the rounds: City of Richmond auditing the Tea Party *UPDATED*

Fact:  The Tea Party, when it held three protests in the City of Richmond, applied for permits, and paid $10,000 for permits, potties, police, etc.

Fact:  The OWS protesters in Richmond simply plunked themselves down, paying nothing (and, I’m guessing, incurring significantly greater police and janitorial charges than did the Tea Party crowd).

Fact:  When the Tea Party learned that it had been damaged by disparate treatment from a civic government, it applied to the City of Richmond for a full refund.

Fact:  The City of Richmond has now sent an audit letter to the Tea Party.  I’ll add here a bonus fact:  the city’s mayor is a Democrat.

Fact:  You need to send this story around to as many people as you can.  The City of Richmond needs to be exposed for this abuse of power and, I hope, horribly embarrassed.

And here’s something that’s not a fact, but that is just my opinion:  The City of Richmond’s behavior perfectly illustrates one of the reasons I’ve embraced conservativism.  I am deeply suspicious of consolidating too much power in any one entity.  The City of Richmond is just one city, yet even that modicum of power has corrupted it.  Imagine this kind of thing playing out on a grand, national scale.  No human is sea-green incorruptible, and most humans, when given power, can get dangerously giddy, with a further subset getting malevolently destructive.

UPDATE: Here’s a more detailed story — which includes a great link to VA Right, a member of the Watcher’s Council.