United Liberty
Why “Tea Party” Means Nothing!
Sat, 01/23/2010 - 11:10am | posted by David Carlson
In my opinion the term “Tea Party” or “Tea Party Candidate” and the whole “Tea Party Movement” is irrelevant. It means nothing! It hasn’t meant anything meaningful for a long time.
Perhaps this is too radical a statement for most people, but ask yourself this: Do Ron Paul and Sean Hannity have the same political views? The clear answer is no. Hannity supports supply-side economics, Paul Austrian. Hannity supports our current foreign policy (including Guantanamo Bay, torture, and our foreign presence in over 100 nations) while Paul supports a foreign policy of non-intervention. Hannity supports Bush regardless of the argument, while Paul will criticize both parties about their big-government policies. Hannity and Paul have completely different political ideologies when they are examined.
Here’s the problem: the tea parties were not entirely made up of libertarian uproar about BOTH parties, but instead have become a combination of libertarians, paleo-conservatives, and of course neo-cons. Ever since I saw Sean Hannity have a live show at a tea party and talk up the tea parties, I knew that there was a serious misinterpretation about what the tea party movement is and what the true identity is.
We can talk all day about how the “tea party” candidate Doug Hoffman was lifted up by conservatives across the nation. But now we have Scott Brown being lifted up as the “tea party” candidate. I have to give credit to The Humble Libertarian as they pointed out that Scott Brown might be against government controlled health care, but he most certainly is not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. Comparing Brown to the libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy:
One supports the nanny state and agrees with Barack Obama’s opposition to gay marriage, but support for civil unions. The other believes government should stay out of the issue of marriage altogether.
One supports the Federal government’s role in taxing income, regulating education, and allowing the Federal Reserve Bank to continue printing money out of thin air. The other adamantly opposes all three.
As a libertarian, I have to be alarmed. I like to think of myself as a “Tea Party” supporter. But then I realize that label means nothing. It’s just a way for neo-conservatives like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and others to put all non-progressives under the same banner despite the clear differences.
Let’s not kid ourselves. “Tea Party” means nothing.
Not to be insulting but this writer seems clueless. Anyone that would call RINO Newt a neo-conservative doesn’t even know what a conservative is.
Newt is a neo-conservative. He is a not a traditional conservative.
Newt is not even a conservative and no one in my movement thinks he is either.
Example: Recently he was featured as a speaker at an otherwise helpful free forum for technology. I won’t go because I don’t need to, but did I recommend it for others? YES! Not because to see Newt but to get the INFORMATION and network with other tea partiers.
Libertarians are the biggest time wasters and whiners I’ve ever seen.
I get more work from “neocons” that I’ve converted than any libertarians.
Your comment is very disturbing to me and really epitomizes the gist of the article; you say Libertarians are time wasters and whiners and that you “get more work” out of neocons than Libertarians. Who are you to “get work” out of anybody? Why do you hold yourself over anyone — whether Libertarian, neo-con, independent, or whatever? I guarantee that you wouldn’t “get” any work out of me with that attitude. We would either work together as equals on mutual goals, or I’d go my own way. Perhaps the Libertarians were not time wasters and whiners, they simply did not want to follow your orders. Conservatives need to stop trying to hijack the TEA Party for their own partisan interests and work together with other Americans - moderates and independents and Libertarians. It’s time to put country first - not party.
I was at the Americans for Prosperity annual conference in Arlington, Virgina back in October. Tim Phillips introduced Newt Gingrich as the intellectual-mind behind the conservative movement. He received a very warm welcome from the conservatives in the audience. So, unless they’re just all not conservatives, I’d say you’re only speaking for yourself.
We libertarians simply ask that conservatives and Republicans actually back up their rhetoric, otherwise it’s “just words, just speeches.”
Is it that I don’t know what a conservative is, or you don’t know what a neo-conservative or paleo-conservative is? Two totally different ideologies.
You are too hung up on labels.
Educate the people around you who are willing to listen.
The masses are finally willing to listen to WHY this is all happening.
Are you ready to stop bitching and help?
If not, then you are not helping liberty either.
The original Tea Parties were designed as anti-Fed rallies. Fox News co-opted them and turned them into anti-big government events. I still think they maintain more of a libertarian bent than the conservative movement as a whole (primarily because the Tea Parties focus on domestic, economic issues, as opposed to foreign policy). And even though they’re not perfectly libertarian, I think the Tea Parties are, overall, a force for good and provide an ample recruiting ground to identify future libertarians.
As someone who has been to several “Tea Parties,” both local to me and in Washington DC on 9/12, the focus is NOT “Anti-Fed” nor “anti-big government” events at this point in their short history. The focus is “beat the Democrats” or “Stop Obama,” and while those may be goals for many participants, it marginalizes the movement to being nothing more than a wing of Fox News/Republican Party.
For those of you that haven’t read, at the “Tea Party Convention” will be keynoted by Sarah Palin, a woman who has decided to sell out her popularity and political might to campaign with/for John McCain, one of the biggest establishment Republicans with poor policy positions (if you believe in freedom and liberty) both domestic and foreign. Hardly “anti-big government,” if you ask me.
Agreed that the TP movement is not what it started as and “neocon” FoxNews has hijacked the Ron Paul Tea Party to promote the “right” half of the “establishment party”.
The one most guilty of the exploitation and perversion of a worthy cause is “fake libertarian” neocon narcissistic Beck with his “don’t give me the credit it’s you guys” 9/12 movement.
This whole thing should give Constitutionalists pause. We get more “Browns” in office. The “establishment party” takes on Red again. The angry mob is satiated and we continue the usurping of the Constitution in favor of a “secret” banking cartel that controls the fiat money and the conversation.
Go figure…
You are either a political newbie or an outright fool.
Beck has done more to wake up ordinary people than anyone… he’s got the bully pulpit…
The only reason Brown’s election was so celebrated is because, do you realize how hard it has been to get the corrupt Kennedys out of office, been there for 47 years? Talk about a machine! At least Brown has no machine behind him… In other states, a ‘Brown’-type candidate would not be acceptable but in Mass it’s a COUP. Do you get that?
Believe me, the angry mob, at least those of us with some political experience and a BRAIN, know that the election of Brown is not going to satiate us, but it empowers us. If we can do that in Mass, just think what we can do elsewhere.
And the ‘masses’ are starting to get it about the banking cartels…. because people running the tea parties are making these issues important.
Smarten up…won’t you?
Is that you Glenn? You sneaky guy you!
Palin was invited to run as VP by McCain and really can’t say NO to campaign for him.
She is very independent and understands just who is controlling things in the government.
She is NOT the leader of the tea party by any means just because she is speaking.
And so what if this is anti-Democrat or anti-Obama for now? They happen to be the crooks who are currently in office.
You people haven’t learned much from the Alinsky progressives have you?
Take this anger and crisis and use it to educate people on who does what, who does it worse.
True we have to work within a two party system, but you are only as good as what you as a committee of one, does to educate others.
We are a committee of one, and need no leader.
And they are still anti-FED rallies! Have you looked at the signs in NH? Maybe NH is different because we are of the paleo-conservative bent and are constitutionalists, but at my tea parties we will protest and educate about anyone and anything that violates our state and federal constitution (which at this point is just about all of them in DC…)
There is SO much to protest, you libs ought to stop being control freaks and stop pouting about what’s wrong with the great awakening and start celebrating and using the awakening to educate people who are for ONCE, finally ready to listen.
What do you think the reaction was to my yellow flag and shadow government information in 1995, just 15 short years ago? The yellow flag was treated as a crime and no one could even understand what I meant about the other thing.
A completely different reaction today — they are listening and absorbing.
WE have a lot of work to do, but we now at least have the OPPORTUNITY to do it.
I am not counting on you sourpuss libertarians to help..
I disagree. Teaparties mean a lot of people have seen how many others there are as sick of what is going on as they are and that they can make a difference.
What if tea partiers in canvasing, regardless of candidate, brought petitions and referenda to loosen ballot access, and change the debate rules?
I think that sort of a task might take hold with enough of the membership to actually have a chance of addressing the issues. The third parties would obviously join in, this is something Ron Paul, Nader, McKinney, Baldwin, Barr and the Boston Tea Party agreed on in 2008. The newly awakened independents who don’t have anyone who speaks for them would likely join in. Some who are really GOP not independent will not.
What is there to lose from trying?
I agree.. not to mention that local groups like the NH state group steers clear of supporting candidates or any of the groups that are in the spotlight, and chooses to educate and inform the recently awakened masses.
To have conservatives marching in the streets is something that should NOT be wasted.
But as usual ‘libertarians’ would rather sit around and argue details and do nothing.
I’m rubber your glue, whatever you say bounces of of me and sticks on you. This comment makes as about much sense as you do.
Woe, the Repulicons have infiltrated the Tea Party via the MSM.
Oh how terrible. Let’s sit back and do nothing then right?
If Hannity offered to draw 20,000 people to my town so I can get my message out, hell I’d take him.
You can take advantage of the publicity without having to take on a person’s beliefs.
That said, to stay away and do nothing because you bear hatred toward people you think are labeled ‘republicons’ is fallible ———— most people who call themselves republicans are for preserving the republic and bear NO resemblance to the national republicans for whom you hold so much rancor..
It’s stuff like that which gets us dictators like Baby Doc Barack… and why NH was taken over by progressives who are ruining the state and taking away liberty every day.
The local ‘republicans’ were the good guys and people like you cluelessly punished them for something they perceived was done at the national level.
This kind of thinking is absurd, immature, and destructive.
Good article. I agree, the “tea-party” has been hijacked by the neocons. And Sarah Palin stands right at the front of the line. Palin is the person who wants the Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, and if Russia attacks Georgia, she thinks the U.S. should attack Russia. This is the person who was for the Bush TARP bailouts, yet her idolizers in the tea-party movement wear tee-shirts stating they support her because she wasn’t for the bailouts.
The neocons in this country get scarier by the minute. And it’s more than upsetting that they’ve hijacked the original “tea-party” and distorted its meaning.
There is a good history of the tea party on the NH Tea Party Coalition website.
But you libertarians, so long as you remain perfectionists, will help lead us to totalitarianism because of your penchant for cherry picking ideas rather than capturing the larger essence of things.
It means nothing to libertarians because libertarians always like to screw things up. If we can stop gov’t takeover of medical system with Scott Brown, then I’ll take Scott Brown.
The progressive movement is DANGEROUS and I’ll take anyone to help me fight it.
Many a RINO has been converted to realizing the problem of the FED and much more thanks to this big tent movement against the coming facist state.
And I say this as the MOTHER of the Ron Paul rEVOLution, where he first started his campaign thanks to ME.
Please, there are so many larger things to unite against, why ‘bitch about hollyhocks’?
The party has definitely changed, if Sean Hannity is jumping on the band wagon, I’m shure as hell thinking about jumping off. I remember donating to Dr. Pauls campain that first party. Now it seems we have abunch of sour graped Repubs crashing and taking over the party, mad that the dems won, wouldn’t have mattered if it was obama or the jackass its self. It’s a pity but I try and look at it in a positive light, to all those Mccain supporters “yeah you know who you are”, Huckabee supporters “he did better than I thought he would” Romny supporters “comon really flip flop” and Guilian supporters “don’t even get me started”. Welcome please don’t ruin a good party.
I bet that the they will come up with a fake third party threw the fake tea party movment headed by Glen Beck.
Glen Beck is a Counterfeit Alex Jones.
He is just like Mike Moore now but the right wing version.
So be aware. They will probably have Sarah Palin hook up with who ever they pick for VP again.
They are also gunna be pushing Amnesty again this fall. We also know a gigantic second wave to the Mortgage crisis is ramping up right now and will quicken in the coming months.
NO INCUMBENTS 2012 except for Ron Paul of course
Just because the Tea Parties have been taken over by conservatives does not mean they are irrelevant. Yes they cannot change anything once taken over by the people causing half the problem, i.e. conservatives and Republicans, but they still indicate there are an increasing number of people who know the two party system is broken.
Nobody said the Tea Parties are irrelevant. They surely are not irrelevant and have played a big role in the policy process the past 10 months.
I think you are a little optimistic though about people becoming aware that the two party system is broken. Surely a small percentage of Tea Party members realize this, but at the same time would they be out in the streets if John McCain was President and approved a stimulus, bank bailout, cap and trade legislation, etc? Maybe so, but we would still have a majority of the party cheer leading McCain on.
I suppose, then, that there really wasn’t a counter insurgency movement in America in and around the 1770’s since not all the participating members of that movement agreed with each other 100% of the time and some - say Alexander Hamilton - hijacked the movement for their own ends. Get off it folks. Tea Party means nothing? No, Tea Party doesn’t mean what the author of this post would like for it to mean. There are salient features that are part of the Tea Party movement. Smaller government (what kind? not even the author of this article can say that there is a consensus as to what kind of smaller government ron paul libertarians and non ron paul libertarians want much less when you throw in the conservatives that also want smaller government), Constitutional governance (again, what does that mean? simply alluding to the founder’s interpretations of the Constitution does you no good since on many issue they didn’t agree either), Responsible foreign policy (again, there is discord among the libertarians even on this point). To sit at your keyboard and type something as silly as “Tea Party” means nothing only serves to show how dense so many in this movement are…that if a word doesn’t mean what we want it to or if doesn’t mean what it meant at the outset (whenever that was and whoever came up with it) or if certain unsavory neo-cons (shiver and screech at the horror) begin to take part and utilize their pull in getting more people involved, then it can mean nothing. Good luck with mandating ideological purity for your movement. It will surely keep libertarianism on the sidelines of mainstream political movements.
It’s clear that the tea party movement has been co-opted by Republicans that are struggling to find a voice. It was a great idea, one that I defended, until it became clear that it more about helping Republicans than promoting free markets.
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