Founded by Christie Carden, the Huntsville Tea Party Movement in Madison County, Alabama began as part of the nationwide protests on April 15th, 2009 against runaway government spending and excessive taxes. Those protests occurred in over 900 cities, throughout all 50 states, and included more than 1 million people. Today, the Huntsville Tea Party is a vibrant collection of patriotic citizens who work together to better our community, its government, and the leaders who represent us.  While there are many good causes and important social issues, the Huntsville Tea Party keeps as its focus those that fall under four foundational principles:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Limited Constitutional Government
• Individual Rights
• The Free Market

Under these principles, our core mission is to influence local, state, and national politics, government, and elections to guide our community back to limited government that respects individual rights, practices common sense fiscal responsibility, and allows the free market to flourish. Government works best when its control and influence is kept as close and local to the people as possible. We believe that governments have their proper role in society and they should be funded to fulfill this role, but we believe that our current government has exceeded its proper role, causing much of the irresponsible behavior and taxation that we see today.

The Huntsville Tea Party is a non-partisan group. We do not provide financial support to any party, candidate, or politician. However, we do endorse and praise candidates and politicians that best exemplify our foundational principles. Likewise, we criticize and oppose candidates and politicians whose behavior, bills, or platforms do not align well with our four principles.

While the Huntsville Tea Party does not assist directly in any political campaign, we strongly encourage all people to be personally involved with candidates, campaigns, and issues that support our four foundational principles. Citizens have a duty to actively participate in selecting their leaders and then holding them accountable for their actions once they are in office. Leaders have a duty to keep their constituents informed regarding their actions in office and the underlying reasons and personal principles that guide each decision and vote that they make.

The Tea Party Movement as a whole has been subject to all sorts of denigrating insults and criticisms since its beginning.  Most of the worst insults have come from the far left.  The people generating the worst lies and insults about our movement will never be fair to us.  There is nothing we can do to earn their respect and so it is not worth trying. However, our behavior must be beyond reproach. There is no place in the Tea Party for racism, bigotry, or hatred and we will not allow any such behavior or message a place in our events, activities, or communications.

Ignoring bad behavior in our opposition does not mean that we should not be mindful of constructive criticism.  We certainly are all free to believe what we want as well as take measures to support our favorite causes.  But there are ideas that have some popularity which do not have a place among our Tea Party's principles. These ideas will bring criticism on us that will drive people away and make our movement less effective.  We want to address some of those issues.

Barack Obama has gone to some lengths to obscure certain facts about his past. While raising questions about this isn't wrong, it is clearly a waste of time.  Where people begin to go off the cliff with this issue is when they begin to think that some circumstance of Barack Obama's birth, if revealed, will somehow lead to him being removed from office.  No congress that has a chance of being elected and no Supreme Court that has a chance of being appointed are going to remove a sitting president over this issue no matter where the man was born.  It is not going to happen.  

Also, there are some people, known as "Truthers", who believe that the federal government was involved in plotting and executing the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  This is crazy talk. Period. People who believe this sort of thing are not living in the same reality as the rest of us.  There is no place in our movement for this idea.

Likewise, there are a few on the fringe who feel that our country and government are so far gone that violence should be used to "refresh the tree of liberty". We absolutely do not support or condone anything of this sort. As Mark Levin stated in his book, Liberty & Tyranny, "The Founders were very careful to explain that revolution is a last resort compelled only by the imposition of an absolute despotism.  No right-thinking Conservative today would encourage overthrowing the United States government, for he does not toil under the iron fist of absolute despotism..."  

If you hold to any of these views, please keep in mind that they are not part of the mission or message of the Huntsville Tea Party Movement. You are free to believe what you wish, but we strongly ask that you not use Tea Party events to spread these beliefs.

We believe that a crucial way we can influence politics and government is by providing education regarding good government and the constitution, and by helping people be aware of current issues and bills and their possible ramifications. To this end, we provide a regular email newsletter, seminars, podcasts, and fliers to handout. We also provide copies of the US Constitution to the public at no charge.

The Huntsville Tea Party is composed of a core leadership team that is strongly supported by a variety of volunteers. None of our leaders or volunteers is paid in any way for their service. We welcome all who wish to help in whatever capacity they are able. The money that we raise through donations and fundraisers is carefully used in direct support of events, education, outreach, and informational materials. Similarly, information that we gather is for use by the Huntsville Tea Party movement only. We will never share email, phone numbers, etc. to any other person or group.

We are truly grateful to all people for any efforts they take to advance our cause or support our principles.