The Teabag Implosion?

Discussion
1

There may be some hope for America after all. Recent polls are showing that the thuggish violence, insipid candidates, and questionable financing may well derail the fascist Tea Party Express. Democrat candidates, as unsavory as many of them are, are closing the polling gaps sufficiently and many Democrat Party operatives are already predicting the Nazi/GOP 'tsunami' will amount to little more than slight, insignificant gains.

  What we really may be seeing, though, is a validation of the Free Market in practical action. While many of us feared the worst at the sight of unlimited corporate dollars flowing into the Teabag Cause, it was Rahm Emmanuel---more through realpolitik than belief in the free market--- who saw the handwriting on the wall. When asked in September whether he thought corporate donations would drown out the democrats, Emmanuel said: 'No, the more these Teabaggers get their message out, the more people will actually hear them; and that can only benefit us in the long run.'

Truth does sometimes come from the strangest sources, but Emmanuel was right. The free market of ideas looks like it might work out after all.

2

Well, Eric, at this point I don't care if money to promote fiscally conservative, if insipid, candidates comes from bats in a deep cave! I would prefer that such fiscally conservative folk come from the Libertarian rather than Republican ranks, so that we would not find ourselves needing to pledge allegiance to a lot more than "Country" at baseball games; however, I do not see that happening in a significant scale. So, save the country from going down the financial drain first? I think there are enough voters who will respond "yes" and keep the Tea Party Express rolling!

Marcy

3

Eric,

  I think you're going too far with the fascist/Nazi language. I'll share a comment I just posted on a website where someone was calling Tea Partiers fascists:

4

Excellent points, Starchild. "Nazism" and "Facism" have descended to the level of name calling; not a good basis for discussion!

Marcy

5

Starchild:

   I agree with you that the government agencies are basically a bunch of fascist thugs, but the Teabaggers not only want to continue such policies, they fully intend to expand on them. They've made no secret about their intentions to declare homosexuality illegal, deprive minorities of due process, break the separation of (their) church and state; and even organize private armies to enforce their will.

  The current government is at least somewhat restrained by constitutional limitations, and politicians are at least restrained by realpolitik and their desire to compromise and hold power. The Teabaggers have made it clear that they intend not to be bound by any such restraints. Michelle Bachman recently called for investigations of 'anti-American' organizations (and political opponents).

  The Teabaggers have shown repeatedly that they are as racist as any Nazis ever were. The Arizona immigration law is a good example of this. Teabag Colorado Gubernatorial candidate, Tom Tancredo, has advocated internment camps for Hispanics, as has his confederate in Arizona, Joe Arpaio. Jim DeMint wants to repeal the 14th Amendment, depriving everyone of due process. The Teabag-dominated Republican Party in Texas and Montana have inserted a platform plank to make homosexuality a federal offense.

  So, I don't think the Nazi label is at all inappropriate. Roosevelt's first VP, Henry Wallace, was interviewed in 1944 on whether he thought Naziism could ever arise in America. Wallace's answer was that it could; but it would caricature Americanism the same way Hitler aped Prussianism and Mussolini copied Romanism. That seems to parallel the Teabag Movement, which uses both Brownshirt ideology and tactics under the cover of 'God and Country'.

6

Marcy,

   I think that you're missing the point here. There is no discussion with fanatics. Our current crop of politicians are a bunch of crooks---yes. What we're being offered as an alternative will change mere corruption into national policy.

7

Eric,

  Not everyone involved with the Tea Party movement has the same agenda. In fact the Tea Party movement is *less* monolithic than either the Republican or Democrat parties, or the U.S. government, since it is not encompassed by any organizational structure. So when you say "Teabag Movement" or "Teabaggers" (neither of which are the names of the movement, but rather a reference to a bit of sexual innuendo that describes sucking on a guy's balls -- so you should use those terms only if it is your intention to be graphically sexual in your comments), you should be more specific about who you mean.

  I would contend that most Tea Partiers are not seeking to declare homosexuality illegal, deprive minorities of due process, organize private armies to enforce their will, or break the separation of church and state (although the definition of that term is so vague that the truth of any such charge is highly dependent upon what you mean -- I would say that the separation of church and state in the U.S. is currently being violated in a number of ways, such as the phrase "In God We Trust" appearing on government currency, presidents taking the oath of office with their hands on the Bible, etc.).

  In fact, excluding that ambiguous "break the separation of church and state" charge, I'm not specifically aware of any Tea Party activists seeking to do the other things mentioned above, let alone a majority of such activists. Evidence that this is what the majority of the movement favors, please?

  Political partisans call all the time for investigations of various groups or officials with whom they disagree. This is nothing new or unique to the Tea Party. You may recall demands that Bush and Cheney to be investigated as war criminals, for Blackwater (Xi) to be investigated, for BP to be investigated, etc.? Sometimes nationalist language has been used in these calls for investigations as well.

  The Arizona anti-immigrant law is not a good example of showing people to be "as racist as any Nazis ever were." The law is definitely nationalist and xenophobic; to what extent it may be fueled by racism is much more open to debate. When you say that Tancredo and Sheriff Arpaio want internment camps for "Hispanics", that misleadingly appears to lend support to your charge of racism, but what they are actually talking about is detaining undocumented migrants (not that this is any better, but it shows the focus is nationalist rather than racist). In any case, I don't think it's a mainstream Tea Party position. Large numbers of Tea Party supporters did not even want Tom Tancredo to run for governor of Colorado (see http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15601816).

  According to this site -- http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/jim_demint.htm -- Jim DeMint wants to expand the scope of what is covered by the 14th Amendment, by applying its protections to unborn fetuses. Where did you hear that Senator DeMint wants to eliminate due process by repealing the 14th Amendment?
  
  Regarding the Texas and Montana platform examples, it seems to me that you are conflating any extreme conservatism in the Republican Party with the Tea Party movement. They are two different things. This kind of extremism in state Republican Party platforms goes back years before the Tea Party appeared on the scene (see e.g. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_10/002380.php).

  To what alleged "Brownshirt ideology and tactics" are you referring, and which specific Tea Party affiliated individuals promote such ideology or engage in such tactics? Have you seen anything as reminiscent of Nazism and Brownshirt tactics in the Tea Party movement as the actions and stateements depicted and described in this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58t4ndJyxYw&NR=1

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

8

Starchild:

   I would totally disagree with this assessment. The Teabaggers are not only more monolithic than the other parties, they are part of the same system.

  The Tea Party IS the Republican Party. Every one of their candidates is running as a Republican. They are all funded by Republican donors. They are promoted by Republican media shills like Beck and Hannity. Their leadership is all current or former GOP leaders.

  As for their concern over the use of the term 'Teabaggers', they freely employed it themselves against Ron Paul's Tea Party Movement before they hijacked it from him.

  It is also incorrect to state that the anti-homosexual, anti-immigration and other extremist positions are not part of their agenda: it is included in GOP party platforms.

  There is no moral equivalence here at all. We may have a bad government now, but the previous administration was positively evil. They had disasterous approval ratings, thus they needed a movement with a populist veneer. Polls among them show that significant numbers believe that Obama is the Antichrist---can we have rational debate with people this mentally unstable?

These Teabag thugs have demonsrated a proclivity towards political violence since they were first promoted on Fox News. They have shown up at rallies carrying rifles, nooses, blacks lynched in effigy; beatings of opponents are not uncommon; death threats against elected leaders; open talk of violent revolution and secession---what makes anybody think they will govern with any restraint once they have power?

To my mind, this movement is no more than an extension of what the Radical Right began in the 90s and came close to accomplishing under Bush/Cheney. The political dialogue in the US has shifted so far to the Right that we're actually discussing domestic espionage, police torture, paramilitary police forces and internment camps as though they were normal policy decisions! This is why I compare these people to Nazis: it was the American Nazi Party who advocated such things just a few decades ago. Today, it's mainstream policy of major parties and candidates.

9

Eric,

  Obviously we have some different perceptions on this issue. You claim the Tea Party and the Republican Party are synonymous, but it seems to me that there is quite a fight going on in the GOP between the establishment and the more radical grassroots, and that this fight is a good thing.

  I'm sure that some supporters of the Tea Party movement, somewhere, at some point, used the terms "Teabag" or "Teabaggers", unaware of the sexual reference, if for no other reason than the fact that some journalists have used these terms. But now that the reference is commonly known, and virtually no one in the Tea Party movement is going to be using the terms, insisting on using them strikes me as nothing more than juvenile name-calling. At least a term like "fascist" has some actual meaning that could be relevant and is therefore open to debate; using a term that refers to sucking a guy's balls is more along the lines of conservatives calling their opponents "bedwetters". There's nothing to debate there, and it adds nothing of substance or value to the dialogue.

  The most widely publicized recent incident I know of involving carrying guns at a rally -- protesting an Obama appearance in Arizona -- involved libertarians, including a Libertarian I know personally, Ernest Hancock. Ernie is a good guy, and an anarchist -- not a conservative Republican by a long stretch. More to the point, I see nothing wrong with carrying guns. Members of the Black Panther Party famously carried guns into the California state capitol, and they had every right to do so. The Second Amendment doesn't contain an exception for political rallies or government buildings.

  I'd like to see the evidence that Tea Party members have lynched blacks in effigy, unless you're merely talking about Obama, who is half-black. I don't even recall seeing anything about a symbolic lynching of Obama, let alone ordinary blacks, or about anyone bringing nooses to Tea Party events. No doubt any movement as widespread as the Tea Party is bound to attract the odd racist, but I don't think that meme has significant support. If you feel otherwise, please provide evidence that any people carrying nooses were more than just a handful of nuts.

  "Beatings of opponents are not uncommon" -- Evidence please? Common compared to what? Common compared to violence against workers who cross union picket lines?

  "Death threats against elected leaders" -- Yeah, I'm sure this has occurred. I heard of such talk against Bush and Cheney too. Completely understandable emotions now, as then, imho, which is not to say that such talk is a good idea, let alone that such things should be acted upon.

  "Open talk of violent revolution and secession" -- And this is a problem for libertarians because? If it's not us talking of violent revolution, the only concern I see is that government might use such talk as a justification to take away more freedoms. But obviously, denouncing the talk itself only aids and abets such a reaction.

  Given that the Obama administration has generally continued the worst policies of the Bush administration and introduced new bad policies of its own, I don't see the basis for judging the latter to be "positively evil" and the former merely "bad". I was glad to see Bush go, and I will be glad to see Obama go, the sooner the better in each case.

  In response to your final paragraph, someone coming from a conservative P.O.V. might write, with about equal validity,

"To my mind, this Obama movement is no more than an extension of what the Radical Left began in the 60s and came close to accomplishing under Clinton/Gore. The political dialogue in the US has shifted so far to the Left that we're actually discussing national health care, effective government takeovers of major companies, national ID, mandatory participation in 'national service' organizations, and FEMA camps as though they were normal policy decisions! This is why I compare these people to Nazis: it was the German National Socialist Workers Party who advocated such things just a few decades ago. Today, it's mainstream policy of major parties and candidates. "

  Did you watch the video at the link I included in my last message below, about the alleged fascist/Nazi parallels of Obama and his supporters? Again, have you seen anything as reminiscent of Nazism and Brownshirt tactics in the Tea Party movement as the actions and stateements depicted and described in this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58t4ndJyxYw&NR=1

  Eric, please realize that the point of my comments in this thread is not to say that Obama or his supporters deserve to be called Nazis/fascists and people on the right do not. I'm simply trying to point out that your rhetoric strikes me as consistently being strongly and unfairly prejudiced towards one side of the conventional political divide. And I don't think it is helpful for Libertarians to side too much with one side or the other, because that just reinforces the same tired, old two party, left-right paradigm we are trying to help people see past.

  To have the best chance of getting the public to embrace freedom, I think it behooves us to present libertarianism as neither a conservative nor a left-wing philosophy, but as something distinctly different, and that we see the leaders of both the Republicans and the Democrats as corrupt and in it for the money and the power, and both of their agendas as destructive to freedom.

  Admittedly I think that on the whole, the libertarian movement and the LP are perceived, with some justification, as being closer to the right than to the left, and that some correction in the party's and the movement's priorities and rhetoric are therefore needed. That's one reason I started the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus (see http://www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/grassrootslibertarians). So the rhetoric anti-conservative rhetoric that you've been engaging in has its place from time to time, although in general I think it's advisable for libertarians to direct most of our opposition toward whichever side currently is in the best position to push the statist agenda. All I'm saying is I hope you'll keep it a bit more balanced. Otherwise other Libertarians like myself will probably feel compelled to provide that balance by writing messages like those I've written in this thread. :slight_smile:

  What's most important in the bigger picture is to keep our eye on the ball and not allow ourselves to be sucked into being partisans for one side or the other of the fake political divide that is distracting people from seeing that the real fight is between individual liberty and government control. I know it's easy to be sucked into that fight, because it's happening all around us! But we should resist the temptation and stay true to plotting an alternate course.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

10

Starchild;

   Since our opinions are widely divided on the nature of the Tea Party, I should probably address the last statement more fully, but first:

   I first heard the term 'Teabag' used, with graphic explanation, by David Gergen in 2008. He was mocking the Ron Paul campaign, who you know started the original Tea Party. I live in area with a large homosexual population, but I'd never heard that term before. I wrote on some blogs that somebody should ask Gergen how he happened to be so knowledgeable on such arcane subjects, but, of course, those never got printed LOL.

  Also, the Tea Party's violent and racist record, since 2009, has been very well documented. You can find plenty of evidence just with a few Google searches.

  I wanted though to address the last paragraph, because as you said, that is the main point. I agree that the dialogue isn't served by a lot of heated rhetoric about Nazis, &c.; but what most disturbs me about the Republican/Conservative movements out there is that they are throwing that term at the Democrats constantly, when they are the ones actually behaving like Nazis. That's a huge problem for me because I've seen how far the discourse has tilted to the Right to the point where I fear a Nazi-like regime rising in the United States is not merely a rhetorical improbability.

  For example, when I was more active in the LP, during Ron Paul/Harry Browne's time, we used to criticise the Clinton Administration pretty harshly; but we were working on things like alternatives to public schools; ending the Drug War; strengthening property rights, ending the 21-drinking age (this was mostly during my college years LOL) and various other things. Since the Republicans took power in 2000, the dialogue has shifted to things like internement camps, mass deportations, government-sanctioned torture, government espionage--- these are positions that outright Nazis like David Duke were advocating 15 or 20 years ago.

  This is why I think the Nazi label is somewhat appropriate. We need to draw attention to the fact that the Right in this country is coming close to deserving that, if not already there. I think that a good use of Libertarian resources would be to add our voices to various iniatives to try members of the Bush Administration for Crimes Against Humanity and also support some of the Democrat/ Progressive iniatives in Congress to bring Articles of Impeachment against some of the Supreme Court justices. That kind of an approach would show an adherence to the Constitution by punishing leaders who violate its spirit.