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Libertarians and the Tea Party

C_Felix

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C_Felix
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Are they different sides of the same coin?

If they can get together, could they be a force in the political conversation? (Well, a bigger force than they are now.)
 
They both share the smaller government goal but when that smaller government thing comes to reducing entitlements like SS, medicare, etc., the TP draws the line.
 
C_Felix said:
Are they different sides of the same coin?

If they can get together, could they be a force in the political conversation? (Well, a bigger force than they are now.)
Click to expand...

I would say that they are clearly not different sides of the same coin.

The Tea Party people are just stupid, rabid Republicans who will vote Republican whenever they can. And if one doubts just how stupid they are, then one just has to look at how it took them several weeks for them to drop the rather inasupicous (to put it mildly) term 'Tea Bagger' and go to the less Gay term 'Tea Party'.

Whereas Liberarians are made up of people who are rather downcast (to put it mildly) about both political parties, therefore neither the Republicans or the Democrats should rely on their support.
 
C_Felix said:
Are they different sides of the same coin?

If they can get together, could they be a force in the political conversation? (Well, a bigger force than they are now.)
Click to expand...

Well, no, very much dissimilar, but most of today's Libertarians are far too stupid to know this. In fact, they couldn't tell you what Libertarianism was meant to be originally. Time was when Libertarians were well-read and thoughtful, but now they seem to mostly be people who look at the excesses of the GOP and think that they don't go far enough into insanity.
 
C_Felix said:
Are they different sides of the same coin?
Click to expand...
I don't think so. The Tea Party has come out very very strongly on the side of social conservativism, which is marked by their intense opposition to marriage equality, opposition to gays serving in the military, continued opposition to abortion, strong coupling of religion with policy decisions, support the reintroduction of prayer in school.

Tea Partiers do not appear to have a coherent message on economic issues. They appear to be interested in "economic recovery" and "creating more jobs" without any message of how those goals should be accomplished -- short of opposiing anything the Dems support.
 
Tea Party -- The invention of Fox News and some wealthy donors, as inspired by the Rick Santelli rant on CNBC, as a temporary re-branding of the GOP so that all the Republicans who woke up on 1/20/09 and decided that deficits are bad could have an unspoiled label to give to their anti-tax beliefs. This was a very effective movement for its intended purpose: the 2010 elections. It had some downside, in that it wasn't 100% controllable, and ended up costing the GOP senate seats from Delaware and Nevada along with some other elections.

Libertarianism (small L) -- A wide range of socio-economic-political belief systems focusing on minimizing the role of government so as to maximize market efficiency and individual freedom. Many of the usual cranks and crackpots have taken up the libertarian banner to advance their cause. Even really famous libertarians, like Ron Paul, are only selectively libertarian.
 
The Tea Party in essence is the GOP old folks' home. They are vested in "the system" and not rocking the boat, not making changes, preserving what benefits them at their age and station in life (MEDICARE, SS, etc...) and dumping what benefits younger, not yet successful people. They have a nest egg to protect.

Libertarians tend to be much younger, with much less success and less vesting in "the system." They are firmly convinced the reason they don't have everything already is due to others (usually the government) holding them back. That's why their ideas tend to more resemble social vandalism than constructive thought. They haven't built up a nest egg so they don't care how dangerous their "utopia" might truly be.
 
The Tea Party was originally libertarian, and in some parts still is, although it lost some steam as it started to come into line with the GOP. I don't think there's any chance for the Tea Party to become exclusively libertarian, but there is a possibility it'll pick up again and give birth to a principled conservative movement, rejecting Newt and Mitt for someone like Paul Ryan.
 
The teabaggers have lost control of their own movement, and all manner of worthless and vicious thugs have come in to take over. Godwin be damned, they are moving toward the Nazi model. They are becoming more violent every election cycle. I half expect one of them, like the teatard Popoditch in California to try to lead an armed uprising.

These are not good Americans.
 
I was thinking along the lines of "smaller government" originally, but, I don't think Libs will want to impose social mores like the Tea Partyers will probably want to.
 
Tea party is absorbing a great deal of the religious right mindset, and so is significantly anti-freedom.

This has been discussed a lot in libertarian blogs, and they don't see much in common with the tea party. Libertarians don't even consider the Tea Party to be true free marketers.
 
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