Tea Partyers don't actually care about "liberty"

[Jefferson23]

But will the fact that they don't even want to end the drug war end their love affair with the libertarian elite?

by Alex Parene

The Tea Party movement was largely embraced by institutional libertarians -- a small group, numerically, but a well-funded and influential one in Washington -- as proof of popular endorsement of their ideas about the federal government. The formerly fringey Ron Paul "outsider" shtick was suddenly much more marketable than traditional pious Republicanism, so it seemed, perhaps, that America had moved in a Randian direction.

The Cato Institute hosted a panel discussion last September with Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe about this wonderful new movement that "Establishment Democrats and Republicans" are too square to understand. According to Armey and Kibbe, "hundreds of thousands of Americans have turned out to protest the boundless growth of government spending, regulation, and debt, and call for the restoration of America's basic principles: individual liberty; fiscal responsibility; and, most important, limited constitutional government." (Emphasis mine.)

The fun part of the discussion is the beginning, when Cato's vice president for legal affairs explains why the institute is talking about a "political movement"/hawking a book by party hacks: Because the Tea Party movement is totally libertarian! Again, they love "limited constitutional government." At least, they say they do.

The Tea Partyers' fiery hatred of redistribution and resentment of societal "leeches" is certainly real, but it's apparent at this late date that most self-identified Tea Party supporters are libertarians in sound bite form only, and certainly no supporters of "liberty" as broadly defined by Reason magazine and the Cato Institute. The Tea Parties believe "liberty" means "not being governed by Democrats" -- a sentiment most libertarians would probably agree with -- but they don't seem to get the whole "live and let live" part of the deal.

in full: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/01/21/tea_parties_hate_liberty/index.html

[OHdem10]

1. Last night Lawrence O'Donnell showed a Poll and WOW!

Over 90% Democrats, over 80% Republicand and guess
what over 70% Teabaggers do not want cuts in Social Security.

Remember when CNN did a profile ot Teabagger Activists/
White, Protestant Male earn over 75K annually. Pretty
much the activists were the ones shown on TV and got
to talk on TV. This profile is typical Libertarian.
Therefore they do not like any social programs.

But look at the rank and file Teabaggers or people
who supported the TeaParty.

Likewise look at the percent of rank and file Republicans
who do not want SS cuts.

Further proof, the Republicans in Washington are much more
conservative than their constituency. Our Conservative
Democrats need to give some serious thought to the fact
that too may be more conservative than their constituents.

[Jefferson23]

2. I agree, one of the reasons Obama won was to ensure we the people

would regain reason once again. Yet, we are far from well represented, we have an up hill battle as a result imo.

Thanks for posting.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. No, because (unlike Ron Paul) most "libertarians " are corporatists , first and foremost. They don't

...give a damn about war, civil liberties or the liberties of human beings.


And most "libertarians" would never be caught dead finding common ground with this guy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x545608




(K and R, by the way)

[Blue_Tires]

4. ttt

[patrice]

5. Heads-up! The wedge issue between TP-ers & Libertarians:

And that's the sort of thing that will actually break up the libertarian-Tea Party alliance. Being unconcerned about the world's largest prison population is one thing. Apostasy against Milton Friedman? That's serious.Text

[Jefferson23]

6. It really is an interesting watch isn't it? Truly a splintered group. n/t

[patrice]

7. I noticed it from the first. Some of them were saying things that a Populist agrees with. I do think

that they haven't put enough thought into what Freedom really is, though. If they'd do that, they wouldn't hate Labor as much as they think they do.

[Jefferson23]

8. Lack of education comes to mind...do they even understand Milton

Friedman's approach and the dire consequences? I doubt it and agree if they were more informed they likely
would support Labor.

[patrice]

9. That's my bias. People need an appropriate learning environment their ENTIRE lives. There's

nothing like that. Even if they had something that approximated authentic education in their youth, for most Americans, it ended in their early 20s. And even for those who go on to post-secondary education of some type, there's no real emphasis placed upon authentic learning, just utilitarianism and immediate base level gratification. For all of our fallderall about national identity, we are rootless and that dis-empowers us.

I like Paulo Freire's http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/ proposals for small, secular, grassroots, autonomously directed, self/community-study/discovery groups. This is the sort of thing that Dean for America/Democracy for America started out to be, but it has become more specifically focused on political development now, rather than a more discovery learning-process orientation.