Tea Partiers vs. Ron Paul
By Brian Doherty
Dave Weigel notes primary challenges to Ron Paul from Tea Party movement Republicans, whose fervent populist anti-government rhetoric seemed clearly in the beginning at least derived from the sort of energy Ron Paul revved up in his 2008 presidential big. Weigel explains, starting with a quote from a Dallas Morning News report.
Tea Party associations aside, many of the challengers’ criticisms echo concerns of Paul’s past opponents: that he is too focused on his national ambitions; that his views are too extreme; that he doesn’t support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that he votes “no” on everything, including federal aid for his district after Hurricane Ike.
“The word I keep hearing is ‘ineffective,’ ” said [challenger John] Gay, a school business administrator. “This district is not really being represented as it could be.”
The criticism is, to say the least, ironic. Almost nothing that Paul does cuts against the rhetoric of the Tea Party movement that is mentioned most in the press: responsible spending and adherence to the Constitution. But some of it does cut against the priorities of national security conservatives and partisan Republicans.
Lots of Reason links on the Tea Party's recent convention here.
Tea Partiers vs. Ron Paul
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Ah, the biggest political lie ever sold:
That the tea party movement is Libertarian!
That's the fallacy. Ron Paul is a Big L "Libertarian" and the teabaggers are too uninformed to know the difference between libertarian and conservative.
I would have loved for the rise of a Tea Party movement to be libertarian. It would be very nice to have a conservative party that was based on libertarian values. But no... Ron Paul reminded us all of the tea parties and the dumb ass conservatives latched on to this Tea Party meme and took it over.
This seems to be an enactment of the Law of Unintended Consequences on Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is not what these tea partiers want because the tea partiers are republican owned conservatives, not Paulite Libertarians. Anyone who is suprised by this must also not understand the difference between the two.
What I wouldn't give to have a Libertarian opposition party... If only their fiscal policies weren't soooooo damn conservative (as in: take us back to the pre-progressive era.) I think we'd all be better off. I'd much rather argue about fiscal policy than social policy. Modern (progressive) Liberals and Libertarians have many of the same social policy views as far as I can tell. It'd be nice to have a right and left that atleast agrees on things like the 4th ammendment, drug policy and victimless crime law .
- Rice klowN
February 9, 2010 7:20AM
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