Life in the Woods

fringeelements:

From GuardofLiberty

That’s it. The “Tea Party” has got to go. They (very much like Objectivists, but much worse than even them) are making libertarians, anti-statists, and free maketeers (whatever you want to label folks like me) look bad, very bad. Put it simply, the “Tea Party” is NOT libertarian. Not in the slightest.

To be sure, Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty originally began promoting grassroots events called “Tea Parties” starting around Tax Day 2009. I would say that these original events were indeed, organized by people with liberty on their minds, however, as Ryanpointed out in two of his posts on Tumblr (here) and (here), the lack of organization and a united ideology set the stage for infiltration.

Conservatives, now alienated from the halls of power after the disaster of the Bush Administration, can no longer call or style themselves as being anything near him because of the anger and resentment associated with his regime (and rightfully so). So, to regain power they realized that they had to reinvent themselves, and thus hopped onto the Tea Party bandwagon, emphasizing “limited government” and other minarchist/constitutionalist language.

The result is the “Tea Party” that we see today- a clusterfuck of people that, as one of the articles (the second) I cited above points out, is more anti-Obama than pro-freedom. Now, to be pro-freedom it’s necessary that you be against Obama’s policies, but there’s the keyword: POLICIES. I hate Obama’s policies. I even think the guy himself can be a smug asshole at times, and at all times is a dolt. But I do not hate Barack Obama as a person. The “Tea Party” seem to hate him just for being him, and routinely strawman his positions while holding up stupid caricatures.

But wait, it seems that the “Tea Party” has expanded its operations. In the AOL article I linked to above, it details “Tea Partiers” favoring Arizona’s New Immigration Law. Now, I do not support Federal Action to overturn Arizona’s Law, but only because of Murray Rothbard’s principle that local affairs must be solved locally, not by a higher level of government, due to the fact that this only increases the power of the central state. In other words, I think Arizona’s Law sucks, but it is a matter to be resolved in Arizona, otherwise the Feds just get more powerful (and we see how that tends to turn out).

The “Tea Partiers” actually turned out to support Arizona’s Law in total. That means according to them, the state can just stop anyone and check if they have a permission slip to be in the arbitrary area known as “Arizona” or “The United States of America”. Doesn’t sound like “limited government” to me.

That’s because in fact the “Tea Party” is no longer a movement that supports such a thing, or anything remotely to do with the liberty movement (to me “limited government” is an oxymoron anyway). It has become simply a cesspool of conservatives trying to find ways back into power. They instead, believe in a “moral” state of national greatness. That is to say, they believe themselves to be the instruments to guide “America” back onto the “right” path that includes overseas empire, combined with strong nationalism at home and “moral” social values. This is what the Tea Party has become, disguised in libertarian rhetoric to get away from the stigma of the Bush regime, though it’s easy to see right through it.

This is why the “Tea Party” MUST go. It must be completely jettisoned from anything having remotely to do with libertarianism or the liberty movement (whether you be a minarchist or a complete free maketeer like I am). Libertarians must distance themselves from having ANYTHING to do with the “Tea Party.” It’s way past time to call them, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin (especially!), etc. out on their inconsistencies and garbage.

A new movement, akin to what Ryan outlined in his two posts must be started, particularly I believe, among my generation, as we stand to gain or lose the most. This movement must be truly revolutionary, not the back-and-forth that the “Tea Party” represents. Think of the “Tea Party” as a reaction to the “Change” slogan of before, but in style only. The new movement must be one of substance. More to come on that later.

There is a chance at real revolution in the world. People are dissatisfied perhaps as never before. Politicians of all stripes continue to fail them while the economy is showing more and more signs of a slowdown (Stocks are actually down for the year). This is a perfect recipe for revolutionary and systemic change.

We DO NOT NEED the “Tea Party” screwing this up, diluting the message of Liberty, and worse, making the Liberty movement look like Conservatives (and angry ones at that) to the less ideological masses, the ones who just want a peaceful and prosperous life and don’t care for politics, economics, or philosophy in depth.

DO NOT associate with these people. They must be called out. Now, these pictures are probably somewhat on the extreme end of the spectrum, but they are a benchmark to show where the movement went.

Amen.