What the hell is "It's Time to Take Out the Trash Day"?

Okay, this is a Facebook group setting up an event today at the Capitol, to go from 1 to 4 p.m.

Gateway Pundit reports it as:

Wisconsin tea party members are planning a “It’s Time to Take out the Trash Day” at the Wisconsin State Capitol to clean up after the smelly slobs who defaced the capitol building during their two weeks of protesting and sleepovers. Wisconsin officials say the cleanup after the protests will cost the state tens of thousands of dollars.

Do we know that "Wisconsin tea party members" set up that Facebook group? There's no official Tea Party organization here, with leaders who adopt policies and stage events. Any individual — for whatever reason — can take it upon himself to announce an event like this and promote it via websites like Gateway Pundit and Breitbart and Instapundit.

And here's "Fox and Friends" referring to the person who put up the Facebook group. They don't name him. He's "the guest that we had on earlier" who is "affiliated with the Tea Party." The female Fox Friend frantically explains that, according to this guy, it doesn't have to cost what was estimated at $7.5 million to clean the Capitol because "we're going to bring a bucket and pail" and clean the building.

This is idiocy! The reason the estimate is so high is that this is extremely valuable old marble that needs to be cleaned according to the protocols of historical restoration. Don't come in here with buckets of water and scrub brushes or whatever you think will make you look good on camera. Don't you realize you could cause more damage? You can't have every well-meaning do-gooder slopping around in there with water! Even aside from the damage to the 100-year-old building, somebody could slip and fall on the water you get on the floor or the junk you put down where someone might walk. (Go to 2:00 in this video of mine to see how the protesters caused a big Democratic legislator to fall by leaving stuff on the ground. (Ironically, it was a pile of peace signs.))

Meaning well isn't enough. Remember the old Reagan quote: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

I'm from the Tea Party and I'm here to help isn't exactly terrifying. But it doesn't make me feel great. The general rule is: Don't help unless you know what you are doing! The default position should be: Do nothing. First, do no harm. This is an essential conservative principle. It's especially obnoxious to help for the purpose of looking good — and making other people look bad.

I assume "take out the trash" is intended as a double entendre, and the person who named this group intended to call the protesters "trash." They are not trash. They are people you disagree with, who have chosen a means of expression that you disagree with.

Now, it's a great idea for Tea Party folk to come down to the Capitol to express themselves and to pick up any litter that they find around the place, inside and out. That doesn't take any special expertise. But if you believe the place is strewn with litter, you are just plain wrong. Meade and/or I have been down there every day for the 2+ weeks, and we're not seeing trash. I have been blogging about this for many days, after a picture of mine showing litter on one of the first days went viral on the internet. The protesters got the message and were extremely diligent picking up trash after that point. Not knowing that makes you look ignorant.

Preening about being better than they are, when you are that ignorant, is really embarrassing.

UPDATE: Meade was at the Capitol from about 1 to 3:30, and he says he didn't notice any Tea Party activity. Maybe they did good deeds in such an un-show-offy fashion that he couldn't see them. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing...

AND: Instapundit says: "It’s funny that cleaning is now transgressive."