There is a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal found here. The author does a fine job of exploring the philosophical common denominator of Tea Partiers.
For me, the Tea Party attraction was less government spending. I was disgusted by both Bush's TARP and Obama's ARRA, and the Tea Party was the first to object to them equally. It seemed that bi-partisan denouncement was also why this movement attracted diverse groups like the anti-government 1960's liberal, the Blue Dog Democrat and the independent.
But the author Jonathan Haidt claims the Tea roots run deeper than just less government spending. He refers to Rick Santelli's now famous speech on CNBC where he railed against bailing out "bad behavior" by individuals. That speech was a major accelerant to the fire of the Tea Party Movement.
Haidt focuses on rewards for good behavior and misfortune for bad behavior, which he sees as more of a concern of traditional social conservatives than for others (but rather than finding roots in Christian morality, he credits the Hindu/Buddhist tradition of "Karma," - good comes from good deeds and bad from bad).
So that brings up the question that the Tea Party will have to face post election as it solidifies its identity: Is "Tea Party" just traditional social conservatism run from the Republican Party to another place, or is it a movement committed only to smaller government, which can attract in addition to the social conservative the libertarian, the independent, the Blue Dog and the doctrinal Federalist?
If it's the latter, then we avoid a Tea Party civil war between pure social conservatives and pure libertarians, which the left is hoping will happen to tear the movement apart.
What are the thoughts of the Ricochet Nation?
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Jun '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
I think the impetus is almost instinctual. When a (socialist) timberwolf pack finds a whitetail deer (taxpayer) by itself, and the pack starts to fan out, surrounding the deer, the deer may not know exactly what's happening, but the deer knows for certain he doesn't like it. There are big issues on the table--spending, healthcare, etc.--but it's deeper than that. People feel their personal freedom slipping away.
Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Tommy, I think "consequences" might be a better and less loaded word that "karma."
Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Tommy De Seno:
So that brings up the question that the Tea Party will have to face post election as it solidifies its identity: Is "Tea Party" just traditional social conservatism run from the Republican Party to another place, or is it a movement committed only to smaller government?
As Obama would say, this is somewhat of a false dichotomy.
Haidt is a bright guy, but a bit too in love with his own cleverness for my tastes. He totally misses the big picture, which is:
With freedom comes responsibility, or else it isn't really freedom.
It is because I'm committed to a smaller government that I recognize the need for a minimum of virtue in the populace, just as the Founders did. Though I have a visceral unease with the government coercing the populace into virtue, I also realize that if we as a culture lose virtue and a sense of responsibility, we will ultimately lose our freedom.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 11:02amAug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
With freedom comes responsibility, or else it isn't really freedom.
I feel a need to explain this one a bit, but fortunately, it's easy:
If I am free to do what I wish and I also bear the consequences, I do not force others to suffer the consequences for me. But if I am free to do what I wish while others bear the consequences, I have made those others to some extent slaves to my own behavior. They are no longer as free.
Therefore freedom, for others as well as yourself, requires bearing the consequences -- taking responsibility.
To believe in freedom without responsibility is solipsistic in the extreme.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 8:31amMay '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Any group, or "movement", big enough to make a difference nationally is going to have a mix of ideas and motivations within it; that's the way people are. There will definitely be some conflict, but it need not come to a "civil war" (or, more likely, an "un-civil" war) if the people involved remember that they have common cause in opposing the status quo in Washington.
The actions of our government in recent decades, and even the base assumptions that guide it, have inverted the American sense of karma, reduced personal liberties, and sunk our bright future into a morass of debt. Whether one is angry over moral threats, financial threats or constitutional threats, the target of that anger is the same.
If you try too hard to pin this movement down and attach the usual labels and categorizations to it, you will miss the big point. That's why it mystifies so many in the political class.
Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Here is a small example of what MFR is talking and with which most folks have some similar experience:
In my town there is a shopping mall. Unfortuately, there was no easy way for drivers on the north side of town to get to the mall. To do so, drivers had to wind through several neighborhoods (including mine) or get on the interstate and drive an extra ten miles or so. To remedy this "problem," the city decided to widen the street going through the neighborhoods and add curbs and gutters and sidewalks etc, all in the name of progress. The neighborhoods vociferously objected but the widening occurred.
The result is that the neighborhoods had to bear more of the burden generated by mall traffic and increased traffic generally at higher rates of speed. Previously, the mall traffic driver had to either bear the burden in inconvenience and time wasted. Thankfully, city alleviated that "burden."
The point is this: Ever since the Garden of Eden, men and women have been attempting to shift the consequences of their actions. To me, the Tea Party phenomenon is an attempt to return to the Founders' system which better accounted for the burden shifting.
Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Haidt is also a guy who goes to great lengths to tap-dance around something that it seems he'd rather not admit to himself: namely, that conservatives value habits that promote consideration for others more than liberals do. Admitting this, of course, goes against the branding of liberals as more compassionate, etc.
But all Haidt's talk of "group-oriented moral foundations" -- loyalty, authority, sanctity -- all that stuff -- really boils down to: do you, personally, value consideration for others or not?
It is as Arthur Brooks found in "Who Really Cares".
Jul '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Sorry, Tommy, but I thought Haidt's column was a meandering, sloppy mess. Once I got to the bottom and realized he is a Professor of Psychology, I understood why. Frankly, I'm astonished WSJ published it.
Have you ever witnessed a heated argument where one of the disputants shouted, "Goddammit, listen to me!"?
That's what the Tea Party is about.
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
With freedom comes responsibility, or else it isn't really freedom.
I feel a need to explain this one a bit, but fortunately, it's easy:
If I am free to do what I wish and I also bear the consequences, I do not force others to suffer the consequences for me. But if I am free to do what I wish while others bear the consequences, I have made those others to some extent slaves to my own behavior. They are no longer as free.
Therefore freedom, for others as well as yourself, requires bearing the consequences -- taking responsibility.
To believe in freedom without responsibility is solipsistic in the extreme.
I think you hit the nail on the head MFR. This dovetails into the discussion we had on another thread. My definition of Conservatism, "Conserving the freedom of the individual against the trespasses of government and the trespasses of others" covers in the last 5 words exactly what you are talking about here (and touches on what Matt is talking about with the Mall).
But I fear there will always be a fight over what is the minimum standards for good behavior and de minimus trespass.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 9:20amAug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Tommy De Seno
But I fear there will always be a fight over what is the minimum standards for good behavior and de minimus trespass. · Oct 20 at 9:18am
Oh, certainly. If no one argued about it, that'd probably be a bad sign: that we no longer cared about where those boundaries ought to be.
But the eternal conflicts about where exactly the boundaries should be can at least be dissipated by invoking Federalism and Subsidiarity. Though this, too, requires making a sacrifice of sorts:
When we feel in our hearts that something is truly good, we are naturally inclined to believe that it should be truly good for everybody. Else, it wouldn't be so good. But others have conflicting ideas about what is truly good, and we can't all be right.
When we decide to set boundaries locally rather than universally, we may feel genuine pain at "cheating" our more distant neighbors out of what we see as so good. But this, I think, is a pain that must be borne patiently.
We sacrifice achieving the universal good, which we cannot do, or have no right to do, for achieving the humbler local good.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 11:05amMay '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
I too liked the article while disliking the alien-to-our-culture term "karma."
What's wrong with responsibility? Responsibility is the natural moral correlative of liberty. A sense of this has deep roots in our founding. "Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."
The late, great Viennese psychotherapist, Victor Frankl, once said of America: "I love the Statue of Liberty. I only wish there were a Statue of Responsibility off the coast of California" (or words to that effect.)
Irresponsible living leads to dependency. It's true in government and it's true in our personal lives.
And the author is exactly right to identify this as a key motivation of the tea party movement: a sense that America is out of control, fiscally and morally.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Subsidiarity, yes. Also a wide and clear consciousness that virtue cannot be coerced. We can't make people moral by eliminating their freedom to be immoral. That's infantilizing.
The author is right that we do a serious disservice to others and to ourselves when we try to insulate people from the consequences of their free acts and choices.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
I don't think its the former since there are classical liberals who support the Tea Party's opposition to the growth of government. If the movement was steeped only in social conservatism, it wouldn't concern itself only with social issues and not financial ones.
Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
You can find Frankl's exact quote here, on Wikipedia's "Statue of Responsibility" page (who knew there was a "Statue of Responsibility" movement afoot? -- I didn't).
If we were to do the impossible and coerce people into virtue, we could do worse than to start by making everybody read Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning". It is truly a Great Book -- and also, I'd add, not very long.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
I understand the discussion and the zeal to find neat boundaries and causes of the TEA Party movement that neatly unite social and fiscal conservatives. Sadly, that quest is going to be as fruitless for conservatism as finding a way to reconcile the internationalists here with the isolationists such as CATOites (Boaz, etc.).
The next time I see a casual sophomoric throwaway presentist reference to "Bush's Bank Bailout" I will launch into a rant of historic proportions. I love Michelle Bachmann, an extremely nice and classy lady whose Congressional district is adjacent to my own, and who lives less than a half hour from me. But her constant harping on TARP drives me nuts just as Haidt's presumptive and simplistic line does.
No one, including Bush, wanted to bail out banks. And no one today knows whether TARP I was necessary- maybe it was, maybe it was not. TARP II certainly was superfluous and wasteful.
But anyone who absolutely claims to know today what would have happened in October/November 2008 without the confidence restored to the financial system by just the positive vote for TARP, even if nothing had ever been spent, is a liar.
Oct '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
I'm sick and tired of this kind of thinking.
Intellectuals compete for control of groups, taking advantage of groupthinkers and "defining" who they are (aka enslaving).
Why not simply say the Tea Party is a diverse group? Why try to label it at all? Even among social conservatives, not all are the same.
Why can't we simply accept that everyone is different? We do elites keep forming groupthinks around themselves? Why is this acceptable?
("forming a groupthink" is my term for populist demogogues who spawn quasi-religions--secular or otherwise--where members are under intense pressure to think a certain way. a cult, in other words, often political)
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 7:10pmSep '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
The standard take on libertarians is that they are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. So, their participation in the TEA Party (doesn’t T.E.A. mean Taxed Enough Already?) is completely understandable.
My problem with most “socially liberal” viewpoints is the personal sanctimony. This comes across as “I’m better than other Americans because I care about (insert cause or group here), and those other Americans don’t.” How can you have and honest debate with someone when their personal self-worth is wrapped up in their liberal views? If they were to acknowledge the validity of the socially-conservative reasoning, they would become less “special.”
Jul '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
As a Libertarian, I take strong objection here.
Being agnostic on social issues does not equate to smugness or being in any way "liberal". It's simply a matter of saying that decisions other people make for themselves on those issues are no concern of mine.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 8:16pmMay '10
Re: Tea Party Karma? Wondering if the tea leaves sprout from libertarianism or social conservatism
Kenneth
As a Libertarian, I take strong objection here.
Being agnostic on social issues does not equate to smugness or being in any way "liberal". It's simply a matter of saying that decisions other people make for themselves on those issues are no concern of mine. · Oct 20 at 8:00pm
Edited on Oct 20 at 08:16 pm
Kenneth, it doesn't appear to me that your comment had anything to do with Michael's. He didn't say a word about libertarianism, he just asked for tolerance for social conservatives as being as caring as liberals purport to be.
That same logic, while not explicit, would apply if you substituted "libertarian" for "socially conservative".