Q: What do you think of the Libertarian movement? [FHF: “The Moratorium on Brains,” 1971]She didn't like it then, either.
AR: All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies, except that they’re anarchists instead of collectivists. But of course, anarchists are collectivists. Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That is worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.
She put out the word to some friends from the Young RepublicansI don't know if you mean this in a tongue-in-cheek way or not, but the truth is that young Republicans range all the way up to 40. The head of the young Republicans, Audra Shay, is at least 38 years old.
Do they really have 30 year olds in the Young Republicans? How old do you need to be before you can graduate to grown-up party membership?
"I tried to boil down in essence what makes me so angry about it," Carender says. "And it was this idea that he and other people decide what the needs are in society. They get to decide. But in order to fund those things, they have to take from some people in order to give to the other people."So what you are saying is that what makes you so angry are, respectively: (1) representative democracy, and (2) the concept of taxes. Talk about some hard-hitting political insight!!! !!! !!!
In the belief that the government is already turning on its citizens, they are recruiting military buddies, stashing weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action. For years, they say, police and military have trained side by side in local anti-terrorism exercises around the nation. In September 2008, the Army began training the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team to provide humanitarian aid following a domestic disaster or terror attack—and to help with crowd control and civil unrest if need be. (The ACLU has expressed concern about this deployment.) And some of Pray's comrades were guinea pigs for military-grade sonic weapons, only to see them used by Pittsburgh police against protesters last fall.posted by cashman at 7:43 PM on February 28, 2010
Most of the men's gripes revolve around policies that began under President Bush but didn't scare them so much at the time. "Too many conservatives relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," founder Rhodes told me. "Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. I trusted Bush to only go after the terrorists. But what do you think can happen down the road when they say, 'I think you are a threat to the nation?'"
In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."
People are starting to realize that our way of life these past 30 years is financially unsustainable. Yes, this includes social and environmental issues as well, but in typical fashion we don't move on things until we begin to feel it financially. People are.No.
The average joes who are unemployed losing their homes? They're not the tea partiers. They're one of the main targets of anger and hatred from the tea partiers, egged on by the tea partiers enablers from the right wing propaganda mills.You underestimate the power of double-standards.
Fools to ignore it, assuredly. But fools to mock it? Why? Are these Tea Party Patriots some form of new sacred cow immune from mocking because they are (on the surface) Populists with a capital P? If they deserve mocking, they'll get it, with any luck -- and the more the better as far as I'm concerned.I should clarify: I think that Democrats would be fools to simply mock this movement, just as they would be fools to simply mock Conservatism's appeals to legitimate virtue.
(* - yes, I note that they do sometimes complain about Wall St - but I have yet to see them actually ask for new laws or enforcement of the existing laws...)One of my favorite conversations with a Tea Party friend revolved around that very issue. He explained to me that if financial institutions weren't regulated they wouldn't have to resort to all the crazy tricks to make a profit -- and we wouldn't have these terrible crashes...
Democrats do need to work on their populist appeals, but it won't appeal to the Teabaggers. I'm pretty sure that their minds are made up.Like any movement or group, the "Tea Party" crowd is made up of a core of die hards and a larger cloud of people who think, "Huh, I can see that point," when the die-hards rant about fiscal responsibility and populism.
A new CNN poll sheds light on who makes up the Tea Party movement. According to the results, tea partiers are richer, more male and have more education than the general population.posted by deanc at 12:25 PM on March 1, 2010
Eleven percent of respondents to the poll said that they had in someway participated in the tea party movement, either by going to a rally, donating money, or "taking some other active step to support the movement." The demographics among that 11% are much different from the rest of the U.S. population.
"Of this core group of Tea Party activists, 6 of 10 are male and half live in rural areas," CNN reports. "Nearly three quarters of Tea Party activists attended college, compared to 54 percent of all Americans, and more than three in four call themselves conservatives."
Sixty-six percent of the tea party activists reported an income higher than $50,000 per year. Among the overall sample in the poll, that figure was 42%. The group is 80% white, as opposed to 71% among all respondents to the poll.
Politically, the figures are not a surprise. Forty-four percent of tea partiers called themselves "Republican," while 52% said they were independent. Among all those polled by CNN, 25% were Republicans while 44% were independents. A third self-identified as Democrats.
The Tea Party consists of fellow citizens whose participation is welcome. I reject treating them as dupes of shadowy corporate lobbies or as racists. (Since racism is intermingled with ideology and economics in the United States, no movement is simply innocent--but I would need a lot more evidence before I would uniquely indict the Tea Partiers on that score.) All that said, their brand of politics seems the opposite of what we need. They interpret standard economic policies--like a stimulus during a recession--as signs of immanent tyranny, thus turning our mainstream debate into a struggle for our national survival. That creates a very difficult environment for governance and problem-solving--even if one happens to favor a smaller role for government.Unfortunately, I think the momentum is against civic engagement and citizen participation again. The relentless drumbeat of campaign seasons just keeps bringing us back to us-vs-them electoral proceduralism.
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