My wife and I hosted Easter dinner this year for our combined family. Since we always try and make a good impression, I went down to Home Depot Saturday morning to rent a rug cleaner (and also to find some of those little rubber feet for a chair we have - but that's another story).

Later in the day, after slaving over a hot rug cleaner for an hour or so, I'm returning the rug cleaner, no longer wearing a sweatshirt. Instead, I have on one of my many "I Am AFP" tee shirts. As I'm walking back to the car, a woman driving out of the parking log rolls down her window and says, "I like your tee shirt!"

When I was a kid, President Nixon used the phrase "Silent Majority" to describe the folks that supported his policies but were largely uninvolved in the political side of things. This was in stark contrast in those days to the "Screaming Minority" marching in the streets and on college campuses claiming a moral superiority it turned out they didn't have.

Forty years later, we still have both these groups, but this little parking lot incident leads me to believe the Silent Majority might be changing its ways. You see the "Silent No More!" signs at a lot of Tea Party rallies. If you ask for a show of hands at these events of those who are becoming politically active for the first time, you get anywhere from 35 - 60 percent of the hands raised.

The Tea Party movement has been derided, dismissed and diminished by lots of Certified Smart People who want to convince everyone that it's all some kind of corporate-funded ruse. It's not - instead it's the Silent Majority finally realizing that they simply cannot remain silent any longer. The country they grew up in - the country they want - is being taken away and handed over to government bureaucrats who long to have the power to make even mundane decisions on behalf of every American.

"I like your shirt." Silent no more.