They’re mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

It was not expressed exactly in those words, and especially not by a former navy chaplain who was guest speaker, but the people lining the front of City Hall said as much by their attendance of the planned Tea Party protest on Saturday.

On a day when thousands of similar protesters marched on Washington D.C., the crowd that gathered in Greenville generously applauded Capt. Charles R. Parker, USN ret., as Parker called out the government for its excessive spending and ridiculed President Barack Obama’s proposed healthcare reform bill. Protesters carried both umbrellas, (there were a few drops of rain), and the American flag.

And signs: “Honk if I Pay your Mortgage,” and “USA: The People Rule…No Gov’t Healthcare…Listen, Listen, Listen.”

“You’re telling me that the government that has bankrupted the post office and bankrupted social security is the government that we’re going to have to rely on for healthcare?” asked Parker. While the Obama administration and its purposed healthcare reform bore the brunt of Parker’s criticism, he also targeted both members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, calling the current political situation in Washington a “tyranny of the majority.”

“They don’t care what I think…they don’t care what you think,” said Parker. “The truth is that 556 people are guilty of incompetence.”

And one day after the eighth anniversary of 9/11, Parker said the United States remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack. He criticized the government’s early withdrawal from Iraq.

“If we don’t keep them pinned down over there, they are coming over here,” said Parker.

Parker and Tea Party organizers encouraged those attending to contact their representatives.