Posted on 12/30/2009 4:51:48 PM PST by Publius804
It appears that some state and county Tea Party groups are trying to cleanse their ranks of libertarians. That's a shame since the movement started with Ron Paul and his libertarian followers, and was then co-opted by mainstream GOP Sean Hannity types.
Lawrence Samuels, editor of Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer and participant in the Monterey County Tea Party, is witnessing the purge firsthand:
[A]fter a successful 4th of July Tea Party parade and Freedom Rally in Monterey, the cracks in the alliance split wide open. I was accused of belonging to too many leftist organizations. In fact, I am co-chair of the local Libertarians for Peace, which joined the 27-member Monterey County Peace Coalition to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Libertarians for Peace is neither Left nor Right….
Obviously, the Tea Party conservatives were neophytes; never before had they been involved in political activism. Some had never heard of Congressman Ron Paul. Prof. David R. Henderson, one of the libertarian Tea Party Board members, described this curious phenomenon as "activism without ideals." I thought my phrase captured it best: "a cause without a rebel." In fact, as demands to purge the libertarians intensified, we got the distinct feeling that the purgers fit the category of "reactionary" since they seemed to know only what they were against, not what they were for. Amazingly, they never pointed out any philosophical differences that they found objectionable. It was as if they were devoid of ideas, marooned with empty rhetoric and no real solutions….
In retrospect, it did not help our case when we asked these rookies embarrassing questions. We asked them why they had done nothing when President Bush bailed out the banks and auto companies, spent money like a drunken sailor, bashed civil liberties and advanced socialized medicine with Medicare Prescription Drug law, a program that some in Congress estimated will have a price tag of $1.2 trillion by 2016. I suppose our questioning merely rubbed their noises too deeply in their ignorance.
You can read his entire account here.
If the Tea Party movement is to function merely as the activist wing of Republican talk radio, it won't get very far.
I’d take Glen Beck—who often refers to himself as a libertarian—over the Democrats any day.
Most libertarians are sensible people who have some bad ideas...but they are not above discourse. Liberals don’t have one good idea and don’t believe in any discourse.
People who say Libertarians and Democrats are both our enemies right now will continue to make sure Obama and his cronies stay in power.
Folks here at FR were calling for new Tea Parties (events, not political parties) in Oct. ‘08 when Congress was setting up the TARP bail-out. After Santulli’s outburst, Beck and FOX co-opted it as Anti-Tax Tea Parties.
Santulli s/b Santelli
The rooster thinks his crowing makes the sun rise and the Paulites think their yammering created the Tea Party movement.
Agreed.
As an ex-Libertarian, now conservative, we need every voice we can muster. I'll take libertarians over Dems and libs any day.
If you are going to attack Ron Paul's (or anyone's) positions on the issues, then attack their positions on the issues, not what some one else says.
My point is that you are using the pi$$-poorest excuse for an argument against someone.
If Charles Manson had supported Ronald Reagan, would you have used Manson's position on issues as a reason to attack Ronald Reagan? That is the sort of logic you are throwing at me.
As for the alphabet soup of government agencies, it seems the greatest use for them our current government has is to stovepipe their information to prevent comparing notes (as in the Gorelick Memo during Clinton's administration), hobbling them to prevent disclosure of potential wrongdoings within the administration. It was apparent under Clinton, and that led to 9/11 in part because those selfsame agencies were disabled in re information sharing.
You are left with calling him a "nut", but you have not really been able to tell me why you think that.
I, personally, have no problem with returning our government to within its Constitutional bounds, which would eliminate over half of the Federal Agencies currently sucking our economy dry, and stop much of the crap going on in DC right now.
Re-read your Constitution. Great stuff, that, and it provides no authority for many of the things we spend our grandchildren's (as yet) unearned dollars on.
listen alright
you like Paul
I do not
You think he’s alright
I do not
I think with the things he says and yes I have given you a couple of points why I think he’s a nut.
I have met and talked to some of his supporters and while some are OK many I have met are nuts
that is how it is.
Please read the article. I don't care if you like Ron Paul, really, that was not my point.
If you don't want to argue like a liberal, don't conflate the actions of a few supporters with a candidate/personality. Very simple. Let the person stand or fall on their own merits.
If you notice, there is a tendency for liberals to take one group and then lump them in with some unsavory types to use the association to make all who are in their new category as unpalatable as the worst of the group.
Gunowners, Christians, and Conservatives in general have long felt this as we have been rhetorically lumped in as part of the 'vast right winged conspiracy' with anti-semites, neo-nazis, and paranoids of every stripe--even though 'paranoid' has become defined not by what one is afraid of, but only by the progress the Left has failed to make on their agendae.
If, in the 1970s you went around saying in thirty-odd years, the government will sieze control of banking institutions, of GM, of Chrysler, would establish whole policy-making bureaucracies under a series of people called 'czars' who would not be vetted by Congress nor elected, but only appointees who would make regulations with the force of law, effectively bypassing Congress as the Legislative body, all at the whim and behest of the President alone, people would have called you a "kook", a "nutcase", a "paranoid", but here we are.
So look at what people are saying before being so quick to peg them as out of bounds, because sometimes, even people we disagree with on balance will get it right.
Happy New Year, FRiend.
look we can keep going on and on till the cows come home.
again
you like Paul I do not
Again I think with what he says he comes across as a lunatic who is way out of touch. you do not
I have told you from experience that many of his supporters are loons IMHO , that is not lumping everyone in the same group but pointing out an observation.
Now that is my view and no matter how many times you keep sending me posts or how long those posts are, it will not change my mind of him or what I have seen or heard.
yea happy new year
Conservative Tea Party members’ number one goal initially should be to drive out all the Ron Paul moonbats.
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