Enraged To Engaged: Tea Party Backers Explain Why

Bill Warner is hardly a naive man. He ran his own engineering firm for three decades, and sold the assets just before the economy tanked. He built his dream home on a majestic hill abutting a national park, back when the housing market was steady. While some neighbors have since been foreclosed upon, Warner is resurfacing his flagstone deck.

And so he understands that in the world of politics, his little group — the Lincoln Club of the Morongo Basin — is but a molecule in the figurative drop in the bucket of power and influence.

Its stated purpose is "to promote, educate and advance conservative principles of fiscal responsibility, small limited government, free enterprise, the rule of law, private property rights, and the preservation and protection of individual liberty." The organization has some 25 members and has raised $10,000.

"It's our way of doing what we can do," he says.

Warner is 65 and soft-spoken, the kind who asks questions before making decisions. He doesn't consider himself a rabble-rouser or "tea party-er."

Yet this past March, Warner packed up his motor home and drove with his wife, Pat, to Searchlight, Nev., to join thousands of others at a tea party rally dubbed the Woodstock of conservatism.

There were, as his friend put it, some "wackadoos" among the masses: The Barrel Man wearing only a barrel and a hat, the guy dressed like Jesus.

There were also plenty of people just like Warner, who held a coffee mug instead of a sign.

Concerned Americans trying to find their voices, and a way to channel their disgust. For some, anger has now turned to action.

Read the rest of this very interesting 'collage' of the movement..