The Tea Party Movement

[FinnMacCool]

Is the Tea Party Movement a fascist/racist group or are they simply just free market capitalists?

Either way, I believe they should be countered, but at first I thought they were just American Libertarians but after seeing the following documentary, now I'm not sure. . .

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQ7JCgbYc4

[FriendlyLocalViking]

The Viking does not see them as Fascist. They are, however, proto-Fascists. If they sprout a military wing and start actually beating the crap outta Democrats and Muslims and Communists and whoever else they think is responsible for "America's Ills", then and only then will the Viking decare them to be a fully-formed Fascist movement.

Regardless, they should be stamped out now. The Viking sees this as a prime opportunity to destroy the Nazis before the Teabaggers become the Nazis. If we strangle Nazism in its crib this time, maybe only a few people will die as opposed to the millions that die when we let Fascism form.

[Ocean Seal]

The Viking does not see them as Fascist. They are, however, proto-Fascists. If they sprout a military wing and start actually beating the crap outta Democrats and Muslims and Communists and whoever else they think is responsible for "America's Ills", then and only then will the Viking decare them to be a fully-formed Fascist movement.

Regardless, they should be stamped out now. The Viking sees this as a prime opportunity to destroy the Nazis before the Teabaggers become the Nazis. If we strangle Nazism in its crib this time, maybe only a few people will die as opposed to the millions that die when we let Fascism form.
The truth is that proto-Fascists are fascists and there is no way around that. Their whole small government ruse and ultra-free market tactics make them very similar to the initial Nazi movement. Also there are several right wing militias in the country (McVeigh style organizations) so they already have this military wing. They haven't used it since the Clinton years, but the threat remains that we could see it once more in the Obama years.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Is the Tea Party Movement a fascist/racist group or are they simply just free market capitalists?

Either way, I believe they should be countered, but at first I thought they were just American Libertarians but after seeing the following documentary, now I'm not sure. . .

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQ7JCgbYc4

I do not know if they can actually be classified as fascist/proto-fascist, or at least if all of them can. A significant part of the Tea Party movement was a originally a core of Libertarians, that was then infiltrated by religious conservatives.

However, the Libertarian faction in the Tea Party is radically declining as it becomes dominated by racists and fascists. The American Fascist Party, (about fifty-seventy five people) have been active at going to rallies, and KKK involvement is not unheard of.

The Tea Party represents a reactionary force that is much stronger than mere electoral politics, they represent the possibility to begin getting violent actively against perceived un-American tendencies.

I think some action must be planned to counter the Tea Party Movement as it begins gravitating towards a form of "Nationalist Populism".

[Agnapostate]

They draw upon many of the same conceptual axioms that the propertarians do, but there are differences in the actual policies that each group advocates. They could find significant agreement with the cultural conservatives in the propertarian movement, as opposed to the "libertines." As for fascism, its roots are also in cultural conservatism, which is why Stormfront agrees (http://www.***************/forum/t696224/#post7969136).


The tea party crowd are comprised of ordinary White Americans, just as White Nationalists are. Culturally and traditionally, they're basically the same as White Nationalists - both rooted in the earlier paleo-conservative value system. The only difference might be that the neo-conservatives seem to think they can manipulate the tea partiers much more easily than they can manipulate White Nationalists. Of course, from the liberal side, the only thing they can throw out is the "race card," so therefore they will keep using the label of "racist" against the tea partiers. "Racist" is really the only rhetorical weapon the liberals have in their arsenal, and since they disingenuously overuse that label as much as they do, even that is starting to lose its power.

Instead of mindlessly throwing around labels like "racist," liberals might actually have to make real, genuine arguments in the future - something they've proven incapable of doing. They've come to rely so much on calling people "racist" to get their way, they use it mostly as a crutch these days.

They have no actual interest in government minimization or ending economic authoritarianism, but they recognize that those function as very effective populist slogans.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

They have no actual interest in government minimization or ending economic authoritarianism, but they recognize that those function as very effective populist slogans.

I disagree, the movement descended from a comment that Rick Santelli made on CNBC in reaction to the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan.

He called for a "Chicago Tea Party", which occurred as well as several other protests in other cities.

The movement started out of small government, and ending economic authoritarianism, but was then hijacked by racist and religious conservative groups.

Currently, the majority of the movement is as you describe it. They don't really have an interest in small government, just small-minded government.

[Agnapostate]

There's also some empirical evidence that validates these intuitions about the tea party movement: http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html


For instance, the Tea Party, the grassroots movement committed to reining in what they perceive as big government, and fiscal irresponsibility, also appear predisposed to intolerance. Approximately 45% of Whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy. Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy. When it comes to gays and lesbians, White Tea Party supporters also hold negative attitudes. Only 36% think gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, and just 17% are in favor of same-sex marriage.

http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/tea_attitudes.PNG

There are certainly correlations with other movements based on common conceptual foundations, be it "libertarianism" or white nationalism.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

There's also some empirical evidence that validates these intuitions about the tea party movement: http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html



http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/tea_attitudes.PNG

There are certainly correlations with other movements based on common conceptual foundations, be it "libertarianism" or white nationalism.

If you read my posts above more fully, you'd realize that I agree with you. The only difference is that I actually looked at the synthesis of the Tea Party Movement as to how it went from being a "small-government", and "economic freedom" group, to the racist and fascist organization it is now.

Largely, because conservatives of a religious and White Nationalist bent realized they could hijack it. And they did.

[Agnapostate]

The movement started out of small government, and ending economic authoritarianism, but was then hijacked by racist and religious conservative groups.

The premise is that rightists themselves don't have an interest in small government, and that the only people who do are anarchists and associated libertarians such as left-communists, actually. So I'd hold that even the "libertarians" on the right don't have any legitimate interest in small government. Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff provided what I consider to be the aptest analysis of the shared conceptual axioms of "libertarians" and other rightists in his Moral Politics:


Libertarians provide a very interesting challenge to the study of variations on a central model. Libertarians see themselves as forming a separate political category, neither liberal nor conservative, but something unto itself. An analysis in terms of variations on central models suggests that their view of themselves is not entirely accurate.

Suppose we start by looking at the central conservative model. Consider a variant on that model that is pragmatic in the extreme, that is, think of a conservative who sees the pursuit of self-interest as the principal end and conservative morality (self-discipline, self-reliance, etc.) as a means to that end. Someone who is extremely pragmatic will be willing to sacrifice aspects of conservative morality if it interferes with the pursuit of self-interest. Now imagine such a pragmatic conservative having the moral focus: noninterference by the government. So far as I can tell, this is what a “libertarian” is, namely an extremely pragmatic conservative whose moral focus is on noninterference by the government. In short, a libertarian is two steps away from a mainline conservative.

Such a person will believe that free enterprise should be as unrestricted as possible and that people should be self-disciplined and self-reliant in order to pursue their self-interest. He will be very much against social programs, taxation, government support of education and the arts, government regulation, and gun control. But the libertarian’s moral focus on noninterference by the government and his extreme support of the pursuit of self-interest will make him a radical advocate of civil liberties. He will oppose any governmental restrictions on free speech, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, and so on. He will probably support the rights of women, gays, and minorities to equal opportunity, but be strongly against affirmative action on the grounds that it gives individuals things that they haven’t individually earned. He will most likely be pro-choice on abortion, but not believe that the government should pay for abortions. And since he gives priority to the pursuit of self-interest over the rest of the conservative moral system, he will not have the moralism of mainline conservatives; the seven deadly sins may not be sins for him.

A good example would be drug addiction, which, to many libertarians, would not in itself be immoral. Libertarians commonly favor the decriminalization of drug use and sale on the grounds of maximum noninterference by the government and maximum pursuit of self-interest. They frequently argue that government interference in the drug trade has artificially driven up the price of drugs, brought criminals into the drug market, and forced drug addicts to turn to crime to support their habits. Decriminalization, they argue, would allow honest businesses to pursue the drug trade, bring in competition, lower prices enormously, not force users to turn to crime, and not make it profitable enough for major crime syndicates to bother with.
The libertarian’s advocacy of civil liberties will bring him into overlap with liberals on many positions. But the source of that advocacy comes from a different place – from a conservative model with minimally restricted pursuit of self-interest and a moral focus on noninterference. The advocacy of civil liberties in a Nurturant Parent morality comes from the nurturance model, especially the concern with empathy, with fair distribution, with happiness, with development of one’s potential, and so on. Empathy and fair distribution are not libertarian concerns.

The fact that libertarians and political liberals both strongly advocate civil liberties is a superficial similarity. They do so for very different reasons, out of different moral impulses, with a very different spirit. Though two steps away from mainline conservatism, libertarians are conservatives in three very important respects: (1) Their concern with noninterference by the government comes directly out of conservatism, out of the idea that the government is inappropriately paternalistic, that mature citizens should be left to take care of themselves. (2) They preserve primary conservative moral priorities: self-discipline, self-reliance, and individualism, rather than the cultivated interdependence required by the nurturance model. (3) They do not give priority to the values of Nurturant Parent morality: empathy, nurturance, interdependence, fairness, and responsibility for others.

There are, of course, lots of variations possible within the category of libertarians. One would no more expect uniformity there than in any other radial category. But variation within the ranks of libertarians is not random. One source of variation is the degree to which a given libertarian preserves conservative moral positions; for example, some libertarians might echo the conservatives’ aversion to drugs because drugs arise from, and perpetuate, moral weakness. In general, the variation among types of libertarians reflects their conceptual links with conservatism. We don’t tend to find libertarians supporting welfare or the progressive income tax or government protections of various kinds.

Thus, despite the claims of libertarians to be a category unto themselves, they appear to be just two steps – two important steps – from central conservatism, and the variation within their ranks seems to tend toward conservatism. There is, after all, a reason why the scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute seem largely to be writing in support of conservative rather than liberal positions. Nonetheless, there is no objective answer here. They are far away enough to think of themselves as a separate category and close enough for others to think of them as conservatives.

And the "paleo" variant that Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell embraced in the late 80's and early 90's has especially strong ties to cultural conservatism, as Rothbard illustrates in Right-Wing Populism (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html).

EDIT: Post #7 wasn't a response to yours, Milkman. I hadn't refreshed the page for three minutes before this comment because I was looking for the links to what I'd documented.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Fascists ALWAYS look for a group or movement to plant themselves into. its not a bad strategy if you are inclined to that sort of work, but the problem is.... its working for the fascists.

there were some fascists saying that they only need 10% support to actually win a "revolution" and they are trying to make that happen through the tea party movement.


Originally, no they were simply reactionary naive lasseiz-faire capitalists. hijacked by even more reactionary, and racist elements. its moving towards fascism.

[FriendlyLocalViking]

Fascists ALWAYS look for a group or movement to plant themselves into. its not a bad strategy if you are inclined to that sort of work, but the problem is.... its working for the fascists.

there were some fascists saying that they only need 10% support to actually win a "revolution" and they are trying to make that happen through the tea party movement.


Originally, no they were simply reactionary naive lasseiz-faire capitalists. hijacked by even more reactionary, and racist elements. its moving towards fascism.

Yeah, basically. The Viking is of the mind that we have to play Fascism whack-a-mole. When we see it pop up somewhere, we need to smack it right back down.