Ron Paul and the TEA Party ?

[$tevie]

Acer wrote: Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

That's exactly how I feel about it!

[Ted King]

DaveS wrote:
I don't want to hijack this thread but your observation of ... "His apparent enthusiasm for killing every single governmental program and/or institution and replacing them with what appears to be a 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' approach is rather stunning." lead me to throw out this for cross consideration ... (bold emphasis is mine)

WaPo Finds Blacks Demanding Racial (Racist?) Unity Behind Obama

The connection of that to what's in the OP must be really tangential because it isn't evident on the surface. If you really want to talk about that, it would have been better, IMHO, to have started another thread.

[(vikm)]

$tevie wrote:

And I love the way that people freak out when Black people discuss uniting to use their collective vote to wield some clout. It's not wrong when the Tea Party does it, it's not wrong when the Evangelicals do it, it's not wrong when anti-abortionists do it. Voting blocs are only wrong when those uppity Black people do it.

C'mon $tevie, you don't really feel this way, do you? You really don't see them as being the same thing, right? It is clearly wrong for any minority (in this case blacks) to join together to vote for any candidate based on either their skin color or the candidates skin color. What they are proposing is just as wrong as those that voted against Obama just because he was black. It was just as wrong when people voted for Hillary just to see the first woman President get into office. There are black evangelicals. there are blacks in the anti-abortion caucus. Hell, there may even be one or two blacks in the TEA Party If and when anyone is getting together to form a voting block based on race and not a specific issue that may be particular to that race's needs, that I have a problem with.

When groups get together and share a common need to have something addressed based on the commonalities in their group, then by all means have at it. I'm pretty sure you agree with that. That is not how I read some of the statements in the article.

[Ted King]

You see, DaveS, you did hijack this thread. Getting back to the OP, libertarian thought seems to fall fairly strongly along two branches - economic libertarianism and civil libertarianism. Tea Partiers stress the former and hardly at all the latter (except for gun rights). Ron Paul sort of straddles both branches of libertarian thought much more than suits most Tea Partiers. Ron Paul is also much more rigorous about consistently applying economic libertarianism to government than many Tea Partiers - a lot of Tea Partiers tend to think that reducing government is a good idea, except for the stuff that they like.

[$tevie]

(vikm) wrote: When groups get together and share a common need to have something addressed based on the commonalities in their group, then by all means have at it. I'm pretty sure you agree with that. That is not how I read some of the statements in the article.

Uh, the commonalities in their group is that they are Black. Which is a political commonality to be sure, considering that it hasn't been that long since they could be murdered for trying to vote.

[DaveS]

Posted by: cbelt3 [PM] [Ignore this user]
Date: October 24, 2011 11:28AM
man, this thread DID get totally jacked. Next thing you know we're going to find it back behind the high school up on blocks with graffiti sprayed all over the body.

I apologize up front cbelt3 - I didn’t realize that folks would go off in the directions they have.

Re: Ron Paul and the TEA Party ? new
Posted by: Ted King [PM] [Ignore this user]
Date: October 24, 2011 12:00PM

The connection of that to what's in the OP must be really tangential because it isn't evident on the surface. If you really want to talk about that, it would have been better, IMHO, to have started another thread.

You are correct Ted and I have noted the same above to cbelt3 – and I apologize to cbelt3 again.

I didn’t think that “losing government programs and pulling on self up by the boot straps” and collectively calling for “a minority to stand together based on ethnicity” were diametrically opposed. I thought there might be a piece of political ground that both bases might share.

To me there COULD BE a good deal of overlap when someone is calling for the “end of some government programs” and someone else is “claiming there is no need to consider the facts of what this the government has done”.

If one does not need to consider the facts then certainly there is little need for a "program" or "programs".

Posted by: cbelt3 [PM] [Ignore this user]
Date: October 24, 2011 10:52AM
Oog, let's not start the "American Voters is SOOOO Stupid" thing again. Work to educate, not denigrate.

I wasn’t headed in the direction of stupidity. I was simply trying to point out/remind Pam of the definitions and the “fun Liberals had” over these folks four years ago.

As for circling the wagons around “ethnicity” Pam is absolutely correct, it has been that way since the country was founded. (Actually history is replete with examples) I personally don’t have a specific problem with it all. Ethnicity certainly does have its place in the political landscape.

Even with that said - I’m sorry she went in this direction with the article.

[cbelt3]

dave- hey, no worries. My aside was intended to be humorous. I contemplated a discussion about 'finding my thread in the Burger King parking lot with flames on the side and dubs on the wheels' too
Besides, I participated in that discussion as well , so, hey, it's cool and fun. Sometimes my train of thought will derail itself !

I'll agree with Ted on the type of libertarianism that each group embraces.. his comment on the TEA brand is quite telling ... "Just the stuff they don't like". Well put.

The bootstrapping concept is of course courtesy of Hoover. The ability of Americans to actually 'pull themselves up' is more and more limited, IMHO, regardless of ethnicity, but more specific to socio-economic standing.

I had a nice discussion with a doctor I met at a party yesterday.. he works in the NICU at an inner city hospital. His comment was that many poor women come in after they are released from the hospital and want a copy of the birth certificate. So they can get benefits. That implies a certain level of intergenerational dependence on the public programs which implies a level of futulity, at least for those subset of the population, to a 'bootstraps' program.