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Tea Parties: Sign of Libertarian Resurgence?
Hotshot political numbers maven Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com thinks the numbers indicate yes:
The best benchmark I've been able to come up with for libertarianism is the amount of contributions to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. Fundraising data has the advantage of being extremely clean and comprehensive -- all contributions of at least $200 are reported to the FEC and itemized by their location.....
We have New Hampshire, we have Texas (where Paul is from) and we have a whole bunch of states in the Mountain West. Per capita, Paul raised about twice as much money in the West as he did in other parts of the country. In New Hampshire, he raised about three times above the national average....
Now then, which states had the most tea party attendance?....As measured on a per capita basis, eight of the top ten states for Tea Party attendance were West of the Mississippi. Five of the top ten -- Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming -- overlap with the best Ron Paul fundraising states.
Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie from Reason magazine's December 2008 issue on why we may be entering a new libertarian moment, tea parties aside. My profile of the Ron Paul movement from Reason magazine's February 2008 issue,
|4.27.09 @ 2:52PM|#
Ooh! Ooh! Let me get it out of the way!
"Where were the tax protestors during the 8 years of debt for the
Iraq War run up by the Bushitler regime?"
|4.27.09 @ 2:58PM|#
"Resurgence" suggests that we had a serious level of influence sometime in the past.
Xeones|4.27.09 @ 3:02PM|#
"Resurgence" suggests that we had a serious level of
influence sometime in the past.
If you count the Founding Fathers, it's more or less sort of
accurate.
|4.27.09 @ 3:06PM|#
Wyoming, Alaska, and Idaho are the 40th, 47th, and 50th most populous states, respectively. So you can probably prove a lot of utter silliness by looking at per capita numbers.
|4.27.09 @ 3:09PM|#
ie, going by the per capita numbers, 10 people attending a tea party in Cheyenne is equivalent to 720 doing so in Los Angeles.
|4.27.09 @ 3:10PM|#
Would there be any Tea Parties if McCain had been
elected?
Yes. But not nearly so many of them. Republicans are best when
they're bruised, beaten and out of power.
shecky|4.27.09 @ 3:12PM|#
Just wait for the Tea Party to be dominated by fundamentalists,
gold bugs, Stormfront, and assorted wackos in three-cornered
hats.
Then again, does anyone really have to wait?
Joshua Holmes|4.27.09 @ 3:14PM|#
The libertarian moment will last until someone actually puts forth a proposal for cutting spending. That dries up support for small government right quick, leaving us one-percenters.
Warty|4.27.09 @ 3:16PM|#
Republicans are best when they're bruised, beaten and out of
power.
I see you were browsing kink.com's fine fare this weekend.
Bluto|4.27.09 @ 3:23PM|#
"Eleven-score and ten odd years ago..."
Or as Johnny Carson once quipped, Four scored snd seven came
close.
|4.27.09 @ 3:24PM|#
"If you count the Founding Fathers, it's more or less sort of
accurate."
Wasn't it the *Anti-*Federalists who were "more or less sort of"
libertarian?
Fist of Etiquette|4.27.09 @ 3:31PM|#
There will be no Libertarian anything until you find a way for politicians to pad their resumes/wallets with the phrase, "There is no good public sector solution for that problem."
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 3:35PM|#
Your assignment is to write the following phrase: "The founding
fathers were not libertarians.", until it sinks in there.
The founding fathers were not libertarians.
The founding fathers were not libertarians.
The founding fathers were not libertarians.
The founding fathers were not liberta...
robc|4.27.09 @ 3:39PM|#
Wasn't it the *Anti-*Federalists who were "more or less sort
of" libertarian?
You saying Patrick Henry wasnt a founding father?
jtuf|4.27.09 @ 3:49PM|#
As always, when membership swells we need to rebouble our education efforts to bring the newbies up to speed.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 3:50PM|#
robc, try this.
The founding fathers who won most of the arguments and then
designed and implemented the actual government were not
libertarian. Some of the radical revolutionaries who were
hangers-on at the time of the drafting of the Constitution who
contributed fuck-all to how things actually played out were
libertarians. Should these dissenters be called "founding fathers"?
Perhaps a more apt term would be "founding funny uncles".
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington: not
libertarians.
Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Mason: possibly
libertarians.
Thomas Jefferson: In fucking France when the important shit went
down.
High Every Body|4.27.09 @ 3:53PM|#
Are they still tea parties or is tha Freeper Teabagging thing catching on?
|4.27.09 @ 3:54PM|#
Madison wrote the Bill of Rights. Was he libertarian? Depends on what year we're talking about. Hell, he wrote the Constitution and there are times in his life you would look at his opinion and say he's not even a Constitutionalist.
|4.27.09 @ 3:57PM|#
By today's standards, the Founding Fathers were closer to being libertarians than they were to being anything else.
|4.27.09 @ 3:58PM|#
And with little thanks to Reason, which has had a track record of treating Ron Paul's presidential candidacy as a laughable spectacle.
|4.27.09 @ 3:58PM|#
lmnop, what's your libertarian litmus test? How high a % does one have to pass to be so labeled? 80%? 99%? 100%?
Fist of Etiquette|4.27.09 @ 4:02PM|#
It was all a trick anyway. Libertarians don't take assignments.
High Every Body|4.27.09 @ 4:02PM|#
And with little thanks to Reason, which has had a track
record of treating Ron Paul's presidential candidacy as a laughable
spectacle.
How could they do otherwise while they were promoting Obama and the
rest of the Democrats?
BTW, Paul was not the Libertarian party candidate last year.
creech|4.27.09 @ 4:11PM|#
I didn't see any V for Vendetta characters this year at
tea-parties. And one wonders why DHS would think some people with
RP bumper stickers just might morph into domestic terrorists?
jtuf, the LP isn't into "education" these days. So some other
grassroots organization will have to do it. Are you willing to
entrust libertarian education to CFL?
Atheist Hell|4.27.09 @ 4:17PM|#
The founding fathers were secularist.
And Panthiest and atheist.
And Dr. Paul ran on the Republican ticket.Not LIB. FYI. ( hence why
I have to change my party back to Lib)
Craig|4.27.09 @ 4:22PM|#
Wyoming, Alaska, and Idaho are the 40th, 47th, and 50th most
populous states, respectively. So you can probably prove a lot of
utter silliness by looking at per capita numbers.
You aren't good at statistics, are you?
|4.27.09 @ 4:28PM|#
By today's standards, the Founding Fathers were closer to
being libertarians than they were to being anything
else.
By today's standards, JFK could be the LP candidate.
Not that I necessarily have a problem with that...
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 4:29PM|#
lmnop, what's your libertarian litmus test? How high a %
does one have to pass to be so labeled? 80%? 99%? 100%?
There is no litmus test. It is especially problematic when talking
about people who lived and died before the ideology ever existed,
but I tend to think that anyone who would look at you like you were
fucking crazy after elucidating the consequences of libertarian is,
um, not a libertarian. I personally think, and anyone can stop me
here, that an argument against nation funding of the post office or
against legislation of social mores would have really left most of
them scratching their heads in astonishment at their interlocutor's
insanity.
To be clear, I think that in these ways, the founding fathers were
*wrong*, prisoners of their times and the ideas then available. But
to call them "libertarians" really does violence to the meaning of
that term. Keep in mind (everyone here seems to conveniently
forget) that the "founding fathers" who drafted the Constitution
were doing so to dissolve an inherently *more* "libertarian" state,
the Confederation.
And do I really need to bring up slavery? Anyone who supported
slavery, or even tolerated its continued existence, cannot be a
libertarian by any tortured sense of the term. (There's your
"litmus test", I guess.)
|4.27.09 @ 4:30PM|#
Uh, maybe I'm missing something but... how can you be both "panthiest (sic) and athiest?"
Anonymous|4.27.09 @ 4:32PM|#
Solana, there were more than one of them.
Elemenope, legislating social mores doesn't seem like a big deal in
a tiny, mostly homogenous country.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 4:33PM|#
Uh, maybe I'm missing something but... how can you be both
"panthiest (sic) and athiest?"
He's talking about a group, *some of which* were Atheists, and
*some of which* were pantheists. (Which incidentally, is not true;
you'd be awfully hard-pressed to find a pantheist, and Atheists did
not, as a rule, admit such back then. Most were Deists.)
Orange Line Special|4.27.09 @ 4:33PM|#
JLM writes: "Resurgence" suggests that we had a serious
level of influence sometime in the past.
They did. Unfortunately, it was all just a dream they had while
passed out after that year's LP convention, which was held in Room
327 of the Pascagoula Holiday Inn.
Meanwhile, here's my extensive coverage of the tea
parties.
I'm very unsympathetic to the real goals of their various leaders,
the other attendees are some degree of mean-spirited useful idiots,
and they're doing it all wrong. They don't have the brainpower or
grasp of reality to realize that they don't have the
numbers. No amount of period costumes or teabagearrings
will ever get them more than 1% of the U.S. population. Frankly,
aside from various types of cults I've rarely seen more delusional
people.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 4:34PM|#
Elemenope, legislating social mores doesn't seem like a big
deal in a tiny, mostly homogenous country.
True. My point only was, it sort of disqualifies them from assuming
the mantle of "libertarian".
|4.27.09 @ 4:38PM|#
And do I really need to bring up slavery? Anyone who
supported slavery, or even tolerated its continued existence,
cannot be a libertarian by any tortured sense of the
term.
Not for nothing, but loads of the founders were against slavery,
from Franklin and Adams to Jefferson (who paradoxically had about
as many comments centered on slavery's repulsive, unacceptable
nature in his Notes on Virginia as he did on the many
inherent flaws of the black man… also, before you beat me to it:
dude had slaves).
Still, El, I see where you're coming from. While I think
libertarianism stems from the tradition of the founders, and is
closer than any breathing political philosophy today, the founders
were largely not libertarian. They were certainly "liberal,"
though, in the sense that almost every poster on this board is a
"liberal," excepting the liberal Tony, of course.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 4:52PM|#
Solana,
I feel much more comfortable calling them "classical liberals" or
something like that. It would be more honest, because it references
the actual ideas they had in mind and studied when they put the
shit in motion.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 5:08PM|#
El, I'm taking it back.
Er, why? Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Hume, Smith...these were the guys
they were reading and were influenced by. They are, as a group,
known as "classical liberals".
alan|4.27.09 @ 5:09PM|#
Where were the tax protestors during the 8 years of debt for
the Iraq War run up by the Bushitler regime?
I know you put it out there for the purposes of humor, but it is
such a deliciously provocative quote, I'd like to take a crack at
it.
And where were you, lefty, Kerry&Quiche* lovers? Smelling up
the streets wasting time with protest signs in your hands, and
supporting candidates whose greatest desire is to wage war on our
domestic economy** to a far more damaging extent than the
misdirected Bush foreign policy? Some altenative you give us there,
chaps.
* Mmmm, I love quiche.
** Looks like Bush's picks Paulson and Bernanke wanted in on that
action too.
alan|4.27.09 @ 5:12PM|#
kudos to LMNOP, making some good points there.
Libertarianism is an extension of classical liberalism, of course,
and more consistent with the underlying philosophy than the
founders were for reasons often due to historical necessities.
AA|4.27.09 @ 5:15PM|#
The real problem is not in the level of interest in Libertarian
ideals -- there's plenty of that, imo.
The problem is that there isn't an organizational structure in
place to DO anything with it.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 5:19PM|#
"They were certainly 'liberal,' though, in the sense that almost
every poster on this board is a 'liberal,' excepting the liberal
Tony, of course."
Tony is a liberal in much the same way as Robespierre was a
liberal.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 5:23PM|#
Unfortunately, I don't think that there is any libertarian
movement afoot. The masses want their bread, circuses, and pork,
and they aren't particular about how they get it.
Studying for finals makes me morose.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 5:29PM|#
The real problem is not in the level of interest in
Libertarian ideals -- there's plenty of that, imo.
The problem is that there isn't an organizational structure in
place to DO anything with it.
Nah. The real problem is people hate paying taxes and hate seeing
the government do stuff they disapprove of. Frustrated and/or
disenfranchised people are always more amenable to an ideology that
seeks to de-fang the powers-that-be. Don't mistake that for
actually believing they want that to always be the case. That's how
the GOP has been able to maintain the illusion they give a shit
about libertarian ideas all these years; when times are hard for
them, they put on their libertarian clothes and fight the "man" in
the name of freedom.
Libertarianism fueled by ressentiment is about as true a
belief as Christianity fueled by attrition.
|4.27.09 @ 5:30PM|#
Er, why? Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Hume, Smith...these were
the guys they were reading and were influenced by. They are, as a
group, known as "classical liberals".
Because language is important. More specifically, the latin root
"liber" is very important.
The better question is, why are those philosophers no longer known
as liberals?
Also, uh, Rousseau is a stretch, buddy, and Hobbes was a
monarchist. Even by today's warped standards, that isn't
liberal.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 5:38PM|#
Hobbes is usually cited as a proto-liberal, as he (along with
Spinoza) was a key player in the foundation of social contract
theory; IIRC von Hayek was perfectly comfortable calling Hobbes a
classical liberal. And being a monarchist was not incompatible with
liberalism, either then or now. Rousseau was solidly within the
French tradition of classical liberalism and is in no way a
stretch.
The better question is, why are those philosophers no longer
known as liberals?
Since when?
Because language is important.
I agree, but when talking about the word "liberal", I'm ready to
say that ship has fucking sailed.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 5:38PM|#
What solana said.
Rousseau wouldn't probably be considered a liberal in the modern
sense, provided his misogyny was ignored.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 5:39PM|#
Should have been "WOULD be considered a liberal in the modern
sense".
Dang, I just can't read today.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 5:41PM|#
And Hobbes' Leviathan was the great philosophical justification of absolutism.
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 5:49PM|#
Rousseau wouldn't probably be considered a liberal in the
modern sense, provided his misogyny was ignored.
That's great, but that's not what the conversation is about. We
aren't talking about whether they'd be called liberals in the
modern sense, we're talking about whether they'd be called liberals
in the classic sense.
|4.27.09 @ 6:01PM|#
I think we can all agree that the once-great term "liberal" has
been ruined by overuse. Its time to replace it. I propose the
modern usage of the term be replaced as follows:
"liberal" = statist scum (n); authoritarian (adj.).
Thus, the statement that "The President, known for his liberal
leanings, reached out to his liberal supporters" would be more
accurately rendered as "The President, known for his authoritarian
leanings, reached out to his statist scum supporters." I think
that's much better. Thoughts?
duster|4.27.09 @ 6:10PM|#
RC Dean:
You only got it half right. Give the same speil for 'conservative'
and you've nailed it.
engineer|4.27.09 @ 6:12PM|#
R C Dean,
Peronally I think that "liberal", "neocon", "religious right",
"fascist", "Nazi", and "communist" have all been so severely
overused as to be meaningless. And they're coming for the world
"libertarian" too. As proof, I urge to look at the self-proclaimed
"left-libertarians" and "libertarian socialists".
robc|4.27.09 @ 7:39PM|#
lmnop,
In fucking France when the important shit went down.
here is where you fucked it up...the FFs are the 1776 guys, not the
1787 guys.
robc|4.27.09 @ 7:40PM|#
Madison also vetoed a highway/canal bill because that was not a federal function. While more federalist than libertarian, good enough for me. I would like to see any fucker in DC veto a highway bill.
|4.27.09 @ 8:22PM|#
"Where were the tax protestors during the 8 years of debt
for the Iraq War run up by the Bushitler regime?"
You mean the bare fraction of the money that's been spent/promised
in the past six months?
Mr. Chartreuse|4.27.09 @ 8:54PM|#
Madison also vetoed a highway/canal bill because that was
not a federal function. While more federalist than libertarian,
good enough for me. I would like to see any fucker in DC veto a
highway bill.
Another plus is that He also authored the Virginia Resolution.
which said that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional
and the state legislatures could ignore the laws (BTW how the hell
did the Alien and Sedition Acts pass so quick after the
Constitution was passed).
Elemenope|4.27.09 @ 9:15PM|#
here is where you fucked it up...the FFs are the 1776 guys,
not the 1787 guys.
Ben Franklin was in France when *that* shit went down. So, either
way, the definition excludes at least one person who otherwise is
considered an FF.
Resort to intersubjective definitions leads to wiki, and wiki sez:
The Founding Fathers of the United States were the political
leaders who signed the Declaration of Independence or otherwise
participated in the American Revolution as leaders of the Patriots,
or who participated in drafting the United States Constitution
eleven years later.
Now, some people make a distinction between the larger group, the
FF, and a smaller subgroup, the Framers, who were involved with
that shit in 1787 too. But they are not mutually exclusive
groups.
|4.27.09 @ 10:34PM|#
Would there be any Tea Parties if McCain had been elected?
YES!!! For the precise reasons we could not stomach to vote for
him. He wouldn't have been as bad as Obama, no way, but much worse
than Bush.
|4.27.09 @ 11:34PM|#
OLS sez Frankly, aside from various types of cults I've
rarely seen more delusional people.
You must not spend much time looking in the mirror.
engineer sez Unfortunately, I don't think that there is any
libertarian movement afoot.
Libertarians, the party of the future: yesterday, today and
tomorrow.
and The masses want their bread, circuses, and pork, and they
aren't particular about how they get it.
Sourdough and some good bacon get my vote. But no circuses, because
circuses have clowns and clowns are too close to mimes.
|4.28.09 @ 12:53AM|#
Labels....
They belong on containers, not people.
Individual freedom is the core foundation of this country. Whether
it was actually practiced at the time of inception is not
debatable, it simply was not the case. (i.e.-slavery, indentured
servitude, etc.)
Everyone argues about what they want, and once they get a few other
people to jump on their bandwagon, they could care less about
individual freedom.
A simple offering of my 24 karats....
Ebeneezer Scrooge|4.28.09 @ 1:33AM|#
Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie from Reason magazine's
December 2008 issue on why we may be entering a new libertarian
moment
I remember that one. I also remembered that some libertarians
definitely favor the use of hallucinatory drugs. But,
There will be no Libertarian anything until you find a way for
politicians to pad their resumes/wallets with the phrase, "There is
no good public sector solution for that problem."
There is at least one sober soul amongst us.
Stephen|4.28.09 @ 3:06AM|#
Since when does Reason support Ron?? Reason magazine made fun of us Ron Paul supporters.
|4.28.09 @ 3:32AM|#
Just wait for the Tea Party to be dominated by
fundamentalists, gold bugs, Stormfront, and assorted wackos in
three-cornered hats.
I'm joining the three-cornered hat faction. We'll team up with the
gold bugs and create a schism.
Ebeneezer Scrooge|4.28.09 @ 4:07AM|#
Libertarians will re surge soon after they emerge. They shall
stage the most amazing resurgent divergence of opinion the world
has ever seen.
Sadly, the world will not notice because it will have no impact on
anything that actually matters.....
robc|4.28.09 @ 8:52AM|#
Ben Franklin was in France when *that* shit went
down.
No he wasnt. He signed the DoI. He was in Philly that summer.
robc|4.28.09 @ 8:56AM|#
lmnop,
Jefferson
Adams
Franklin
Sherman
Livingston
That was the committee assigned to write the DoI. Would ahve been
tough for Franklin to be a committee member from Paris.
Eric Dondero|4.28.09 @ 9:11AM|#
The best benchmark for the success of the libertarian movement
and growing influence was John McCain picking one of the Nation's
three most libertarian Governors for VP in late 2008: Sarah
Palin.
As insiders in the McCain campaign now admit, she was picked to
appeal to a "libertarian" (Glen Beck-ish) type audience for her
limited government views.
But that's one news story Reason completely missed. Poor reporting,
or just bias against libertarian Republicans will never know?
Brian??
dhex|4.28.09 @ 10:07AM|#
"The best benchmark for the success of the libertarian movement
and growing influence was John McCain picking one of the Nation's
three most libertarian Governors for VP in late 2008: Sarah
Palin."
it's been months now and we get it, donderlolz. you beat off to
palin. we all know that now. thanks to you we have to find some
kind of brain sanitizer. way to go, chief.
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