United Liberty
Did Sarah Palin Poison The Tea (Party)?
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 5:06pm | posted by Doug Mataconis
One blogger says yes:
The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience.
Sarah Palin didn’t give a tea party speech last night. She gave a partisan Republican address. It was a purely political speech designed to position her for a presidential run in 2012 or 2016. Period. She wasn’t there to celebrate the organic nature of a movement she had nothing to do with creating. She was there to co-opt the name and claim the brand as hers. And she did.
The movement, that came to be officially recognized almost a year ago but whose roots go back further than that, has been snuffed out and replaced in the public mind. The movement that began as a people’s movement of angry independent, libertarians and conservatives will now be thought as the movement of people like Palin, Dick Armey, Judson Phillips, Mark Skoda, etc. Essentially, a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Official Conservative Movement” and the Republican Party.
Strong words, but this much is sure — if Sarah Palin is the face of the Tea Party, then there is no room in it for libertarians.
If you are at the grass roots, tea partiers are willing to listen to you, then give you a nice pat on the head, and then support Republicans. I’ll give them credit for being willing to hear libertarian ideals (true libertarianism). Foreign Policy, gay marriage, and abortion are the three issues that are their main concerns.
Other then bumbling as she strained to read notes someone else apparently wrote for her, in addition to reading off her hand, here are some of my notes taken from Palin’s speech:
1) she _strongly_ supports sanctions against Iran (which is an act of War).
2) war on “terror”: She states we do not back down and we do all we can do to win! (whatever ‘win’ means)…
3) She railed against the underwear bomber but failed to mention that the reason he attempted to attack was because we killed hundreds of people in yemen just alittle over a week before Christmas.
4) She stated the U.S. Constitution does not represent foreigners in our country: Glen Greenwald (libertarian) states that is not true and that the constitution represents a foreign citizen here and that’s why they should be given their miranda rights once they touch our soil. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/01…
Would be interested in comments from this site on this?
5) She stated she wants more religion in politics. Ms. Palin, the reason the original settlers came to America was to be _free_ from all that.
6) She stated that when she was governor she refused the bailout funds that came to Alaska, but the republican congress in Alaska vetoed her decision. Ms. Palin, everything I’ve read states that you were not even governor of Alaska when the bailout funds came their way!
7) And after being paid $120k to rehash a Neocon party line of simplistic one-liners, the auditorium erupted with a standing ovation and a chorus of calls to: “Run Sarah Run” “Run Sarah Run” (in 2012).
Why would people who state they have been against the TARP bailouts support someone who was for the TARP bailouts?
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