"The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover"
So writeth Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, chairman and president/CEO (respectively) of FreedomWorks, in today's Wall Street Jounal. Excerpt:
The tea party movement has blossomed into a powerful social phenomenon because it is leaderless—not directed by any one mind, political party or parochial agenda.
The criteria for membership are straightforward: Stay true to principle even when it proves inconvenient, be assertive but respectful, add value and don't taking credit for other people's work. Our community is built on the Trader Principle: We associate by mutual consent, to further shared goals of restoring fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government. These were the principles that enabled the Sept. 12, 2009 taxpayer march on Washington to be one of the largest political protests in the history of our nation's capital.
The many branches of the tea party movement have created a virtual marketplace for new ideas, effective innovations and creative tactics. Best practices come from the ground up, around kitchen tables, from Facebook friends, at weekly book clubs, or on Twitter feeds. This is beautiful chaos—or, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek put it, "spontaneous order."
Decentralization, not top-down hierarchy, is the best way to maximize the contributions of people and their personal knowledge. Let the leaders be the activists who have the best knowledge of local personalities and issues. In the real world, this is common sense. In Washington, D.C., this is considered radical.
Whole thing here. The two have teamed up on a hot-of-the-presses book entitled Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto.
Read Kibbe's real time Reason howl against TARP in October 2008, or his contribution to our August "Where Do Libertarians Belong?" package, and watch him talk to Nick Gillespie below:
