Mutant Surf
Those Were the Days

The Maligned Tea Party

That's the title of this piece by Charles Cooke at National Review Online. While I sympathize with at least some of the Tea Party's complaints and proposals, I also have my disagreements with it, and in general find its rhetoric simplistic if not entirely wrong. I don't believe, for instance, that excessive taxation is, in itself, a major source of our problems. 

But I don't like seeing any group of people unfairly demonized, and I object strongly to the bigotry which liberals have exhibited toward the Tea Party. It seems to have been triggered by some kind of reflex, first in advance of evidence and then in spite of it. I know a few people who jumped right on it, and my respect for them was permanently damaged by the spectacle of their eagerness to join in the bigotry. The first rallies had hardly made it into the news before liberals in and out of the media rushed to label the group "racist." The most egregious instance of alleged racism, when a group of black congressmen were said to have been abused, seems to have been at least greatly exaggerated, if not entirely invented, as significant bounties offered for proof had no takers.

For those who don't want to bother reading Cooke's piece, I'll reproduce this paragraph, as it gets at the way liberalism betrays its own core principles with this sort of thing. Cooke singles out three categories of people responsible for the organized slur:  first, "almost everybody at MSNBC, the Democratic National Committee, the Obama administration, and the parade of political operatives who work around the clock to make politics intolerable for everyone." (I love that last item.) Second are "genuinely dangerous Americans who do not grasp the nature, legitimacy, and vital role of vehement political opposition in a free republic." And:

The third group is perhaps the most interesting, for it is full of people who have become precisely what they fear. When the history of this period in American life comes to be written, historians will almost certainly come to see the hysteria prompted by the rise of the Tea Party as akin to the “Red Scare” of the 1950s — except, that is, that there were actual Communist traitors in America. The New York Times’s Ross Douthat has observed that the more genuinely vexed among the movement’s detractors believe the group to be “an expression of crypto-fascist, crypto-racist rage, part Timothy McVeigh and part Bull Connor, potentially carrying a wave of terrorist violence in its wings.” Douthat correctly explains that “the historical term for this kind of anxiety is ‘Brown Scare’ — an inordinate fear of a vast far-right conspiracy, which resembles the anti-Communist panics of our past.”

The Ross Douthat piece that Cooke links to is worth reading, too.

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first, "almost everybody at MSNBC, the Democratic National Committee, the Obama administration, and the parade of political operatives who work around the clock to make politics intolerable for everyone."

Excellent!

Second are "genuinely dangerous Americans who do not grasp the nature, legitimacy, and vital role of vehement political opposition in a free republic."

Yep. Very dangerous and scary people.

On the other hand:
http://caelumetterra.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/images-16.jpeg

My hero!

The fact that a lot of Tea Partiers rallied behind the candidacy of Herman Cain should've put the racist thing to rest long ago. Likewise, there are a lot of them that are big backers of both Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal.

If my own discussions in fora like this are representative (and I hope they are not), the TEA party is suffering from arrested development.

1. Its allies in Congress are (of necessity) engaged in trench warfare over tiny patches of territory and their negotiating position has defaulted to common Republican shtick (e.g. you must never, ever raise marginal income tax rates).

2. Policy shops have their own ongoing institutional life built around producing working papers on discrete topics. Constructing a scaffolding for a comprehensive reshuffling of public and private responsiblities is outside their usual modus operandi.

3. Task forces in and among working politicians have the same difficulty - even more so given that they take as their points of reference extant programs and legislative activity. Robert Dole seemed to understand the world in this way only ("we passed a bill just a couple of weeks ago providing for a 5% increase in...").

4. You discover among the rank and file who participate in fora like this a complete absence of interest in identifying problematic public expenditure; it remains unspecified or they display wild incomprehension of what specified public agencies do. For the most part, it is a long running bitch about taxation. Sorry for the self-plagiarism, but this gives you a flavor of it:


AD:

The problem with the Taxed Enough Already business is that it is bass-ackward.

Tax collections need to balance expenditures over the business cycle. Debt accumulation is only appropriate to finance public works (at the state and local level), to finance general mobilizations, and to clear banking crises.

Which is to say your tax collections are derived from your spending plans. Deliberating about programs to excise should be their focus. It is not, and it should be. I have tangled with enough people in fora like this to know that for every person who has an idea of a dodgy program of some size to excise you have at least one person who says something inane like 'abolish the Department of Homeland Security' and about five or six people who go on a whinge about the 16th amendment (with complaints about the 17th to boot). I can only hope the people out on the streets are shrewder than combox denizens.


TEA Partisan:

Cutting programs has long proven impossible.

Reagan seemed to popularize "starving the beast" by holding the line on taxes.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any interest in capping the debt limit so things continue unabated regardless of not taxing enough to cover spending.

Being opposed to new taxes is about the only thing that garners popular support so I support that. It doesn't resolve everything but it solves the immediate problem of keeping the govt's hands off my money. Unfortunately for the youths, they will inherit the problem.

I don't know about abolishing Homeland Security but I could cut the govt by 5% tomorrow and strongly consider cutting other programs 20%+


The man oscillates between incoherence and arbitrary dismissiveness.

--

The recent tangles over fiscal matters remind one of some serious architectural defects in the political system. Try suggesting that to TEA partisans and you get dead silence or an assertion that we could fix all our problems by repealing the 17th amendment, I kid you not. There are elements of a political cargo cult there.

I might hope Sen. Cruz or Gov. Palin can move some of the discussion to a constructive realm but I am not hopeful.

In fairness, I should mention that establishment Republicans in those fora are useless too. They satisfy themselves with impugning other people's 'sanity'.


We need a creative opposition party at this time. The condition of the Republican Party is troublesome from top to bottom.

Another element you discover is TEA partisans are given to faddish enthusiasms for one character for another. Marco Rubio was a beau ideal for a while, until he proved himself a mendacious Ken Doll. Why a man in early middle age without executive experience whose pre-political career consisted of running a solo law practice should be considered suitable for the President's chair I do not know.

Mr. Cruz is by all appearances more intelligent and trustworthy than the South Florida Sage, but he suffers from similar deficits. A TEA partisan tells me that Barack Obama's election had demonstrated that you did not need an experienced executive as a Presidential candidate. Uh, fella, you get elected to something, you have real responsiblities. Watching the current incumbent ought to persuade you that putting a tyro in that chair is a bad idea.

Some of these people just loathe Mike Huckabee, go figure. Eleven years in the governor's chair and innovative ideas about tax policy mean nothing.


I am just hoping the people carrying signs at Gov. Palin's rallies are not so pig-headed as the people I talk to.

The Herman Cain enthusiasm was easily ignored as Data That Does Not Fit The Narrative. Liberals are no more inclined than anyone else to look past their prejudices. And it seems a worse fault in them since Tolerance and Openness are part of their religion.

"We need a creative opposition party at this time. The condition of the Republican Party is troublesome from top to bottom."

No kidding. In a way the McCain-Palin ticket was a perfect reflection of the party: cranky rich establishment "maverick" who disdains the rank and file, and seriously underqualified populist long on sound bites and short on substance.

I am not by any means praising the Tea Party, just defending them against unfair slurs. "A long running bitch about taxation" seems pretty true of at least a lot of what they say. I suspect that they are no more eager than anyone else to see cuts in government programs from which they benefit.

However, I might agree with your guy's proposal that the Dept of Homeland Security be eliminated.

No, but you can find establishment Republicans who have reframed the Cain enthusiasm to fit a 'TEA partisans-are-stoopid/insane' narrative.

The difficulty with establishment Republicans is that they have (by all appearances) no center of gravity bar conventions and prejudices held within a particular subculture. What they advocate at any given time amounts to a pastiche of what is being advocated around them or a defense of their daily life. Maggie Gallagher once said that people like Christine Todd Whitman look at abortion on demand about they way they look at Weed B Gone - as a tool to keep and maintain the agreeable life they have built for themselves.

Harsh, but not without justification (that last sentence).

Oh, I doubt McCain disdains the rank-and-file. He is a contrary man with some idiosyncratic views (his open-borders enthusiasms). As for Gov. Palin, she is not particularly unqualified. She has 11 years under her belt as a mayor, state bureau chief, and Governor. What she did not have was experience as a federal official. Quite a few national candidates in recent decades have had no background as an executive in the public or private sector, among them Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, Robert Dole, John McCain, Albert Gore, Bill Bradley, John Kerry, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Paul Ryan. I am just not seeing how she was terribly misplaced in that company, bar those bloody flat vowels of hers.

I have no reason to fancy they are devoting any thought at all to programs from which they benefit. In fact, other than Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid for nursing homes, I tend to doubt most TEA partisans are contingent (net) beneficiaries of federal programs in any way obvious or important to them.

What I suspect is going on there (and I sheepishly have to credit Pete Spiliakos, who annoys me terribly) is that TEA partisans traffick in 'self-validating narratives' about who they are in relation to the world around them and about the country's history. Some of these are true to a degree. Some of them are ill-considered. The cargo cult fascination with the 17th amendment is a tell here: our problems stem from disregarding a feature of Mr. Madison's vision. One of them tells me a few years ago: "we can rarely improve on the Founders. They were simply very wise men". James Madison = Hari Seldon. They do not do details, and in any case their acute problem is their tax return (as they see it, see above).

As for the Department of Homeland Security, it is simply a (non-comprehensive) collection of federal police and civil defense services. Other than the Transportation Security Administration and an intelligence clearinghouse, there is not one component that was not already incorporated and running in August of 2001, though some erstwhile agencies twinned and calved when the Department was set up (e.g. the old Immigration and Naturalization Service being replaced by three agencies with distinct part of the old INS portfolio). Even the TSA's functions (in a less elaborate form) were not novel; they have had security screening at airports since 1973, it is just that the screeners were not federal employees and did not tell you to take your shoes off). I would be fascinated to know which component of the DHS you or he want to eliminate: the Secret Service, or the Coast Guard, or the Customs and Border Protection service, or...?


On the other hand:http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=tea+party+nuts&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=HmzXihH4lGRNeM&tbnid=lY91thSoOXzM7M:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fokjimmseggrollemporium.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F01%2Fwe-dont-need-gun-control-maybe-nut.html&ei=kR54UrSAIIS3qgGH34D4CQ&bvm=bv.55819444,d.aWc&psig=AFQjCNF207qeVPPFnYiaLNiyJBzcEQhjSg&ust=1383690200610133

"I have no reason to fancy they are devoting any thought at all to programs from which they benefit."

Really? I readily admit that I don't follow the thing in detail, but I have certainly seen Tea Party complaints that Obama was endangering Social Security and and Medicare.

I think if the bringing together of a number of quasi-military armed federal agencies under the name "Homeland Security" doesn't strike you as alarming I'm not likely to be able to convince you otherwise.

Daniel, I'm sure I could match you crazy for crazy from left-wingers (though the type of crazy would be different), but I'm not going to play that game. You're going to hang on to that prejudice anyway.

And you did notice that there's no mention of the Tea Party in any of those photos, right?

I think if the bringing together of a number of quasi-military armed federal agencies under the name "Homeland Security" doesn't strike you as alarming I'm not likely to be able to convince you otherwise.

The Coast Guard is quasi-military. I do not think the Customs and Border Protection service is, though they are armed.

The name is clunky. Would you feel more at home if they collected the rest of federal law enforcement and re-christened it the 'Department of Police'?

Here is the agency list here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Homeland_Security

On the local level, you have a police department, a fire department, ambulence service, and a public prosecutor. On the state level, you have police, prisons, state militia and the attorney-general. I think you commonly have a civil defense office in both. I am not sure why this pattern cannot be replicated at the federal level, bar that some member of Congress was protecting his turf. I think combining interior customs and immigration enforcement was likely a bad idea.

Mac; the photo of the guy with the sidearm and the sign about "watering the tree of liberty" ("with the blood of tyrants"is the rest of the quote) was at a Tea Party rally. Ditto the chubby Cap'n America. And yeah, go to a lefty demonstration and you will find all kinds of wackadoos as well. Granted. The Tea Party lost me when they showed up in Wisconsin, siding against the unions. They are bankrolled by the Koches and are part of the war on the working class and poor. All the while collecting Social Security and Medicaire (judging by folks on my route that send checks to them).

The Tea Party lost me when they showed up in Wisconsin, siding against the unions.

Since the unions are predatory public employee conventicles, I should hope so.

Public employees deserve the right of collective bargaining. Labor unions make the difference between poverty and no rights and a semblance of a living wage, where you can't be fired arbitrarily. Plus, oh, an eight hour day, paid sick leave, etc, etc. I am guessing you are not working class...

Public employees deserve the right of collective bargaining.

No, they do not, and such organizations are predatory and rent seeking at the expense of the public. The proper determiner of public employee compensation is the body of elected officials, not labor bosses conceded parastatal power.

Those pictures may very well have been taken at a Tea Party rally. But as I said, there is no indication on that page that they were. Not that it matters much to the point I was making.

I have no objection to anyone arguing with their views. That's fair play. I would even agree with a lot of it. What I object to, and what's not fair play, is painting them all as dangerous nut cases, racists, etc. on the basis of the worst examples. You would recognize that for what it is if someone linked to a bunch of stories about black crime and violent rhetoric and said "See? blacks are violent criminals."

I'm pro-union in principle. That doesn't mean I feel obliged to side with the union position in every instance. Alabama's teachers' union, for instance, was for decades run by a classic sleazy political boss (complete with big cigar), and has often been an obstacle to education.

I will say that public unions are a somewhat different case. Not sure what I think about that. Reportedly Roosevelt, who no doubt was generally pro-union, thought them wrong.

Looking at that list of DHS components, I find the whole thing even more alarming. I don't think the provision of fire depts, police, etc is supposed to be scaled up to the national level.

I will say that public unions are a somewhat different case. Not sure what I think about that. Reportedly Roosevelt, who no doubt was generally pro-union, thought them wrong.

Fiorello LaGuardia as well.

I find the whole thing even more alarming. I don't think the provision of fire depts, police, etc is supposed to be scaled up to the national level.

1. Civil defense benefits from a larger actuarial pool. You have co-ordinated action by local public safety personnel supplemented by state militias and federal agencies. You would not want recovery from tornadoes in Joplin to rest solely with the county government.

2. Forest fires transcend local government boundaries and even state boundaries.

3. Guarding the international frontier is now and has been since 1788 a federal responsibility. The Coast Guard, the border patrol, your point-of-entry inspectorate (customs and immigration alike), your visa inspectorate are all aspects of that.

4. Making uniform rules of immigration and naturalization is an enumerated power of Congress, and has been since 1788. Your interior immigration agents enforce that (in conjunction with your visa inspectorate and your point-of-entry agents).

5. Regulation of commerce across state lines, across the international frontier, and with the aboriginal population is also an enumerated power of Congress. Your interior customs police are in the business of combatting smuggling.

6. Another enumerated power of Congress is to define and punish certain crimes, including counterfeiting. That's a major component of the Secret Service's function (the other is dignitary protection).

7. Another of the components provides security for federal buildings. Did you expect them to rely on local sheriff's deputies?

8. Other components are in-house research centers and in-house training centers.

--

You have the Park Police, the Diplomatic Security Service, and the various and sundry police services incorporated into the military and the civilian auxilliary to the military. As for the rest, it is in the Department of Justice. There has been a great deal of complaint in recent years about the excesses of federal prosecutors and the unnecessary federalization of offenses, but I am not sure who you think is supposed to enforce federal court orders, contain drug trafficking (which runs across state lines and the international border), contain espionage by foreign governments, or contain multi-state or multi-national schemes to steal, defraud, or extort. Please note, 89% of all convicts are state and local prisoners, so it is not as if the central government has supplanted them in the realm of law enforcement.

I am really confused as to what your practical solutions to these challenges is bar a federal police department.

It's not something I have time or inclination to explore in detail. That the federal government has overreached considerably seems self-evident to me, as does the potential for abuse posed by the increasing militarization of its many agencies (also a problem at the state and local level, of course). DHS is only one part of that, but I think people are right to be wary of it.

It's not something I have time or inclination to explore in detail.

In this circumstance, the detail is what matters. In any country, you have a division of labor between central authorities and the periphery. In the realm of law enforcement, what is that division of labor and how has it been breached? "Seems self-evident to me" doesn't cut it.

You apparently have a whole lot more free time than I do. I promise I'll study this question more fully and come up with specific recommendations when I'm put in charge of reorganizing federal law enforcement.

Perhaps this post should be replaced with one about Tangerine Dream?

What I have written, I have written. But since you clearly have a craving for Tangerine Dream, here's a good one, and not too long.

Yes, indeed, Art appears to have a LOT of free time...

I meant to say, a couple of days ago, re Sarah Palin's qualifications: I didn't mean that she didn't have enough relevant experience--she was certainly superior to Obama in that respect. I meant, alas, her personal abilities. I really wanted to like her, but I think she would have been in way over her head.

I liked her until she opened her mouth.

I liked her for a while after that. Actually I still don't dislike her, but let's say I think it's for the best that she seems to have given up her electoral ambitions. I rather liked her convention speech, as far as it went, which wasn't really very far.

I saw Sarah Palin on the Charlie Rose show in 2007, before she was very well known outside of Alaska, and I thought at the time that she came across as intelligent and quite capable. Here's a clip of part of that interview. She's rather low key, not "out there" as she is now. I can't help thinking that change may be at least partly because she was attacked so vehemently right out of the gate in 2008.

I've also always felt that her image suffered mightily from the outset in 2008 because of her daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, announced just a few days after her pick as VP candidate was announced. It just fit the "trailer trash" meme so perfectly, and it was as if she had to dig herself out of that hole from the start, a pretty much hopeless task.

It actually took me all of a couple of minutes to read down the list of agencies and noodle around a bit concerning the ones I had not heard of.

And, no, I am not asking for your opinion on how to re-organize the federal government. I am asking why it is you wish to eliminate a department which collects a mess of agencies which have existed for decades (or are lineally descended from agencies which existed for decades) and generally perform functions which have an explicit constitutional mandate or would be awkward for local governments to perform. The federal agencies most likely to intrude on the general police power of the states are the FBI and the DEA, neither of which nestle in the Department of Homeland Security.

It was an offhand remark: "However, I might agree with your guy's proposal that the Dept of Homeland Security be eliminated." I'm really not interested enough to take the time to delve into the subject deeply enough to determine whether I truly think that would be a good idea or not.

Yeah, she certainly *was* attacked, Marianne, pretty viciously. Extremely viciously. So it could be true that her reaction made things worse--tended to confirm what the people who didn't like her already thought.

I never think of her now without remembering the way certain fairly well-off WASP types of my acquaintance reacted. These are not especially liberal people, though not especially conservative either. At least some of them had voted for Bush. But they reacted to Palin with visceral disgust. It wasn't just what she said, it was *her*--the way she looked, the way she talked...her general white working-class evangelical tackiness. Whenever she said something inflammatory or superficial it confirmed their instinctive distaste.

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