With the CPAC straw poll results, and the word “libertarian” beginning to get tossed around when referring to these folks, do you guys think that’s a good thing? They seem to be for fiscal responsibility, but some are rather hawkish, and most are big-time anti-immigrant. Enough common ground to be potential political allies? Or will the word “Libertarian” get dragged through some serious muck before it’s all said and done?
Definitely a useful movement if you ask me. I don’t care if they don’t agree with me on everything, they’re fired up and ready to get some Republicans elected. That’s all that matters to me.
Hey man, Neo-cons are “Republicans” too. I don’t like authoritarians, regardless of what color tie they wear.
I don’t hate neo-cons. They’re useful too.
The same could be said about the Dems.
Not really, they rarely are motivated to try and get the same things done that I want to get done. They’re the political enemy.
I think the tea party movement is a frankenstein combination of libertarian (or at least libertarianish) folks and reactionary conservatives who only meaningfully become anti-government when Democrats are in office, and people who are more anti-Obama than anything too much more general than that. I suppose it can be used by libertarians as a means through which to radicalize some of them even more, but it seems to have been co-opted by the Republican establishment already, and the media largely seems to be using it as fodder to blacken the name of libertarianism by associating it with reactionary conservatism.
Yours truly,
Left-lib Anti-pol Heretic
Well, what do you want done?
LOL, this seems far too reductionist. These aren’t sports teams here.
First concern for me is taxes, I always want lower taxes. Dems never want lower taxes.
This is politics. Either we win or they win.
They are as useful as the anti-war Dems. Once Republicans get in office, they will disappear. They are not really anti-tax, just anti-current Democratic control.
The MSM is so in the bag for the left, they’re gonna spout their nonsense no matter what happens.
I’m OK with them
Yeah, these guys creep me out a bit.
It’s almost like an anti-“cult of personality”, although a few will bash Bush as well, although without nearly as much fervor.
That’s why I’m so pensive about really endorsing it as a movement. And they seem to like Palin as well (shudder).
Ron Paul is the only real “conservative” in the Republican party. The Dems and Reps are just two branches of the same party.
None of them are useful. They are more likely to hijack the terminology and claim opposites of what they are. Especially the neo-cons. I will find libertarians who are interested in Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. They seem to agree on the economics (somewhat) on the libertarian side, but when it comes to other things such as the war (War on Drugs, War on Terror, etc etc) they seem to be all for it.
I can see the term “libertarian” fading away if this keeps up. I don’t have any interest in the Tea Party movement, but it can either be a gateway for neo-cons to hijack libertarian movements, or for neo-cons to be enlightened (more so the talking heads of media will hijack it).
I hardly identify myself as a libertarian anymore. I highly doubt Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will be going to an anarcho-capitalist conferences or publicly claiming to support an-cap ideas anytime soon.
That’s the difference. I really could care less about money. I like the cops leaving me the hell alone.
Dude, I bet if you took a blind survey of Ben Nelson’s and Scott Brown’s respective platforms, you would never guess which one was a Dem, and which was a Rep.
If you are a non-questioning partisan who toes the party line 100% of the time, I guess that would be true.
I notice one of the big critiques of the movement from the left (thinking the getting your news from the daily show types) is that Tea Party people aren’t “for” anything they are only against things. I don’t see how this is a good argument at all. I also got the impression from these people that they think the Tea Party movement is like 50% racist birthers and a further significant percentage 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
But I would agree that its waay too Obama focused, or at least it has been characterized and shown that way. Whenever you see pictures of protests you always see those Obama pics of him as the Joker, which just kinda creep me out.
LOL, ever heard of NewsCorp?
Maybe that’s good. I could see a lot of disillusioned anti-war Obamanites looking for a “third way”, maybe some anti tax conservatives could be equally as fed up following the next election cycle.
There’s Rand Paul, Debra Medina, Gary Johnson, Andrew Napolitano (others?)
For the most part, they are just beige centrists.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
That would be the day!
I always forget about Rand Paul and Andrew Napolitano. I have not heard of the other two.
I would watch for Johnson in 2012. If not as candidate for prez, at least as Paul’s VP candidate.