Recasting Romney

For several decades Senator John McCain was regarded as the Democrat's favorite Republican. He was widely praised for cooperating with the Democrats on bi-partisan legislation while in the Senate. He was not considered radical or extreme at all, except by libertarians who viewed him as extreme for having the flaws of both Democrats and Republicans in one person.

Then Senator McCain became the Republican presidential nominee. In the course of one month he was regularly regarded and depicted as a radical hard-core right-wing extremist. All of the people who had previous praised him as a model of what a Republican can be and should be forgot everything nice they had ever said about him.

Once the election was over, Senator McCain was "rehabilitated" and is again regarded as a positive example of a Republican. Once President Barack Obama started experiencing problems during his administration it became important to portray Obama has having defeated a much more moderate Republican in order to show he had wider support when he had run.

There is no question about Governor Mitt Romney's conservative credentials. He is approximately as conservative as Senator McCain. It is Governor Romney who introduced Romneycare as the most glaring example among many of how his own beliefs are so far out of line with what Republicans allegedly believe (but quite in line with what they actually believe).

During the Republican presidential primary, it was widely regarded that the Tea Party constituency had no love for Governor Romney, preferring candidates such as Governor Rick Perry or Herman Cain. Now that the primary is essentially over, Governor Romney is being recast.

Looking at the preliminary Democratic campaign material in support of the reelection of President Obama, there is an attempt to associate Governor Romney with the Tea Party, portray him as an opponent of government-run health care, and strangely enough as radically different from President Obama.

The problem is, this rhetoric trying to portray Governor Romney as different from President Obama may work. With many of the United States electorate educated by government schools, and getting their news only from CNN or Fox, the facts matter less and less each year. And with the rhetoric from each side presenting the opponent as different in spite of the facts, this will become yet another in a long line of "most importation election ever" campaigns that will be used to argue that it is now too critical to vote third party.

To Be a Real Radical

It disconcerts progressives to learn that libertarians enjoy and appreciate Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. For a very long time they have tried to equate the term "progressive" with "radical" - but only sometimes - to try to portray their demands as daring, avant-garde, leading edge, or in some other way innovative.

For an example of this viewpoint, just peruse any comparison of the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement that is written by a progressive. Libertarians understand that the two movements, when at their best, are very nearly identical in meaning. The demands of those Occupiers that are less appealing to libertarians are the same demands progressives have been making for decades, and are considered "revolutionary" by the progressives commenting on the Occupy movement.

From a progressive point of view Saul Alinsky is supposed to be "left" and libertarians are supposed to be "right," whatever those terms mean. Plus libertarians support capitalism, therefore libertarians "can't be radical," ignoring the many and profound differences between corporatism and capitalism.

This must be made clear: the twentieth century was the century of government. That means advocating government is advocating what currently exists. That means there is nothing radical about seeking governmental solutions to society’s problems.

Everything that the progressive has to offer is a governmental solution to society's problems. Their only defense of that single track argument is to engage in the fallacy that if the government is not acting then nobody is acting to solve those problems.

The radical wants something different from the status quo. The conservative is comfortable with the status quo. The political and economic situation of the United States is a mix of mercantilist and Keynesian economics with a near-limitless government. The status quo is "progressive," and that means progressives are not only conservatives, they are arch-conservatives.

The real radical doesn't support more of the same. There are real radicals in both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement. Anyone who claims that one is good and the other bad is in support of "keep them divided" and thus in support of the 1% of the population that is composed of elected and appointed government officials with actual power - the real ruling class. The real danger is that the radicals in each movement might discover a common cause with each other.

The Occupy Wall Street Tea Party

Watching the activities of Occupy Wall Street is quite like watching the history of the Tea Party played at high speed.

Both movements started out grass-roots, comprised of a diverse range of ideologies. Both are spurred by the excesses of the collusion between the banking system and the government and the abuses contained therein, and therefore have appeal to libertarians. Both started under presidents that it is assumed the movements would support. Both were ignored by the media at first, until the country's political leadership decided it was time to co-opt the movement by sending in a stooge to claim to be in charge of and represent the movement. Both have a big name partisan speaking for the group, Michael Moore as the analogue to Sarah Palin. Both are being fully Astroturfed, with the Tea Party being taken over by theocons and Occupy Wall Street being taken over by unions.

Whereas this is working faster, Occupy Wall Street has already reached certain end conclusions that took the Tea Party years to achieve. Already leaders have appeared to present lists designed to discredit any participants who aren’t amenable to being steered in an appropriate direction. Given the two party paradigm, the effort is to shoehorn them into the Democratic Party.

Apparently the Tea Party proved to be a lesson for those in charge. It was ignored too completely, and became an actual movement before there was an opportunity to capture it and control it. Diligent work was required by Sarah Palin and Glen Beck in order to slowly co-opt the movement, and for a while there was a strong conflict between the "Sarah Palin faction" and the "Ron Paul faction" over control of the Tea Party. Even then the Tea Party did partially steer the 2010 mid-term elections, although they did “deliver the vote” as required by the Republican Party,

The Tea Party movement was ignored for one year, and it took two years to tame. Clearly the political elite do not want to go through that again. After ignoring the Occupy Wall Street movement for one week and determining that it is not going way, they moved in quickly to ensure that this movement doesn’t get away from them. Until then, the Democrats finally have their own Tea Party to go to.

Why Rand Paul?

The libertarian opinion of Randall Paul can be stated pretty simply.

"So far he appears to be not as good as his father, but still shows lots of promise and is poised to be the best person in the Senate. So far he appears to not be as libertarian as Ron Paul, but is still demonstrating that he has some good solid leanings in that direction for as little time as he has been in the spotlight."

Libertarians could be wrong about him; he could actually be more radical than his father, or he could fail to demonstrate the promise he has shown so far. His vote against renewing the USAPATRIOT Act and his proposed $500 billion budget cuts that included the entire Iraq War and the entire Afghanistan War are not anything that libertarians would complain about.

So why then does there appear to be a more extreme reaction to Randall Paul among the liberal punditry? Even Rational Wiki expresses greater skepticism towards Randall Paul than to Ron Paul as evidenced by the tone of their articles.

Part of it could be that Randall Paul has a stronger Tea Party affiliation. While the Tea Party movement was started by Ron Paul, he is no longer a part of it while Randall Paul was elected as a part of that movement. That would give liberals two criticisms against him, libertarianism AND the Tea Party.

But that is not sufficient to explain the hysteria over Randall Paul. The reason they are so hysterical is because he really is a greater threat.

Even though Ron Paul's ideas are rapidly becoming mainstream, he still suffers from the stigma of being considered a kook for so many years by those who tell the public what to think. Randall Paul is too new to have been stigmatized. Moreover, since the Republicans are trying to absorb the Tea Party movement, the Republicans cannot criticize the star candidate of that movement. Since Republicans have to be silent, lest they lose on their effort with regards to the Tea Party, that leaves Democrats to have to bear the entire burden of telling everyone how they should feel about Randall Paul.

Ron Paul is also near the end of his political career. If he does run for president, his age would be a great liability. Randall Paul does not have that problem. He is not only a lot younger, he has already achieved much higher office than his father did. Even if he is more moderate than his father, he's in a position to achieve much more, and to go even father than he has already gone.

Democrats have to do this on their own without Republican help. The ideas of the Pauls are more mainstream than ever. Randall is a Senator poised to go much farther and do much more. Even though he might be more moderate than his father, he is poised to do far more for liberty than his father did. No wonder the left is hysterical.

The Tea Party Response

One week ago, President Obama delivered a rather uninspiring state of the union address. That was followed by an uninspiring Republican Party response. Then, rather curiously, there was a "Tea Party" response delivered by Representative Michele Bachmann.

Although the Democrats made appropriate noises about how this amounted to two Republican responses, because Representative Bachmann is a Republican, the choice of Representative Bachmann as the representative of the Tea Party was a curious one.

In the House of Representatives is the Representative Ron Paul, the god-father of the Tea Party, although he declined to join the "Tea Party Caucus" that Representative Bachmann formed. The biggest electoral victory of the Tea Party movement was the election of Senator Randall Paul. Either one would be a better representative of the founding of the Tea Party, although neither exactly represents what they are today. The last thing leaders of either the Democratic or Republican Parties want is giving Ron Paul a national platform through a response to President Obama.

By choosing Representative Bachmann, that makes her the face of the Tea Party, an arrangement that suits both the Republicans and the Democrats. The anti-war platform of the original Tea Party is replaced by Bachmann's refusal to take the nuclear option off the table when dealing with Iran. She brings the desire to have schools teach Intelligent Design to a movement that had never included it before.

The placement of Bachmann actually weakens the Tea Party movement as an independent movement and increases its role as an adjunct of the Republican Party. This weakens the threat the Tea Party poses to Republican Party leadership who were facing a grass roots rebellion. This brings the votes and energy of the Tea Party safely back in to the Republican fold, a great benefit to the Republican Party.

It is also a great benefit to the Democratic Party. Since Bachmann is considered to be less credible of an official, it enables Democrats to paint the whole movement with her lack of credibility. Moreover since the Tea Party movement was too uncompromising, unlike the standard Republican leadership for whom there are few actual ideological differences.

The choice of Bachmann benefits the Republicans and the Democrats at the expense of what independence is left in the Tea Party movement.

Monadnock Valley

One thing that a political party does not want is to be the party in charge during a disaster, especially one that the public considers preventable. An economic downturn is a prime example of this sort of event, where both parties try to take credit for any economic upswing and blame the other for any economic decline.

As bad as the current economic decline has been, something much worse is on the horizon, something that is preventable assuming even a little bit of political courage. Of course, needing a little bit of political courage is exactly why nothing will be done about the bust of Social Security in 2016. So rather than do anything about it, Obama may be playing to lose.

Now it appears that the Republicans may have caught on to that strategy. The Tea Party may have given the Republicans an unexpected victory, which would add yet one more reason for the mainstream Republican Party to dislike the Tea Party movement. But interestingly enough, before the 2010 victory, Republicans were not talking about Sarah Palin as a viable presidential candidate.

This could be an example of "Play to lose will you? Well then, take this: Candidate Palin."

Of course finding political connections between Palin and Soros adds an interesting twist.

But there is one more outcome if the Republicans have also decided to play to lose in 2012. They could pull a Monadnock Valley.

In "The Fountainhead," a con-man hires Howard Roark to build the Monadnock Valley vacation resort. Nobody can figure out what is wrong with the project until it is completed and starts turning a profit. It turned out that the con-man expected to fail and double sold the stock. If the project had failed he would keep the money from the excess stock sail, but since it succeeded he had to pay $2 in dividends for every $1 in profit.

The con-man chose Howard Roark because conventional wisdom said he was the worst architect, but it turned out that conventional wisdom was wrong he was actually the best architect.

The Republicans may wind up picking a “Monadnock candidate" in the 2012 elections. They may pick a candidate who they expect to lose, but will not only win but be able to handle the economic woes afflicting the nation. They wouldn’t handle then in a way that keeps the elite in their privileged positions, but the problems would be taken care of.

Who would be a "Monadnock candidate" if the Republicans did this? It would have to be someone that conventional wisdom considers to be a poor candidate but has the potential to deliver far more than conventional wisdom could ever anticipate. The list is not large, but it includes Representative Ron Paul, Senator Rand Paul, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Governor Gary Johnson. Of course, the Democrats probably have their own "Monadnock candidates" but they will probably not run as Obama will likely be the Democrat candidate in 2012.

An Overused Tactic

If an average American were accused of being a Tory, he’d probably shrug his shoulders and consider it a silly thing to say. During the American Revolution, however, it was a potent insult. Call him a Papist and he’ll understand that it refers to Catholicism, but will find it an odd way of putting it. If called a Communist most would find it funny, although that does still retain some sting.

The truth is that labels meant to be insults do lose their power over time. Sometimes the issue ages out, such as when calling someone a Tory. Sometimes the label looses effect due to overuse, such as when calling someone a Racist.

It has come to the point where the term "racist" has become so completely overused that it is losing its impact. There was a time when a person so accused would take great offense and spend much time demonstrating a lack of racist tendencies. The typical response now is to sigh and accuse the other person of making the accusation due to having run out of actual arguments.

The reason it was overused is because the person making the accusation typically did resort to it due to having run out of actual arguments. Now an outside observer, hearing a progressive refer to someone else as a racist, hears "he's saying that guy isn't a progressive."

That is what happened when the president of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, called out the Tea Party movement as racist. It was such an obviously cynical and transparent ploy that it takes a determined effort to believe that there is any legitimacy to the claim.

He was called out on it a cynical and sarcastic response by Mark Williams of Tea Party Express. While the Tea Party Express is one of the groups trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement with false promises of "enemy of my enemy" and "lesser of two evils", in this instance Mr. Williams was right. He compared the NAACP to slaves rejecting an offer of freedom.

For that he was pilloried in the media as racist. While the National Tea Party Federation did expel him, the wider reaction was interesting. Most progressives worked hard to convince themselves that the letter was itself racist. Everyone else yawned.

While it is good that those who dare to oppose progressive are no longer afraid of the charge, the unfortunate effect about the diminished meaning of the word "racism" is that it enables the few real racists to defend themselves with "he called me that because I’m not progressive enough."

Once again, a useful word has been destroyed by progressives. First the word "liberal" was taken to mean the reverse of what it originally meant and now "racist" has come to mean nothing at all.

Tea Party Protest History

The first of the modern Tea Party protests took place in 2007. It was a combined event, both a protest against the excessive spending of George W. Bush and a campaign event of presidential candidate Ron Paul. Throughout 2008 more of these combined events occurred.

This is important to remember, because while the current state of the Tea Party movement is such to cause many libertarians and other freedom lovers to be a little cautious of the current Tea Party protests, especially those that emphasize the pseudo-patriotism of the current military misadventures in the Middle East, especially the Tea Party Express AstroTurf movement, the history is still noble.

Currently progressive and liberal critics of the Tea Party movement like to ask the question where the protesters were before February 2009. This is asked in order to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the protesters by highlighting how they didn’t protest spending under Bush. This allegedly shows that the protests aren’t based on spending but either on partisanship or on alleged (but never proven) racism.

It is true that after the election many people joined the movement who were not in it previously. It is true that many of these late-comers could have their concern described as partisan instead of fiscal, but certainly not all of them. The same can be said about the reduced attendance in anti-war protests since January 2009.

The history of the Tea Party protests is also forgotten by members of the Republican Party trying to absorb the Tea Party protests with false promises of “enemy of my enemy” and “lesser of two evils” who do not want to recall the true origin of the protests. To acknowledge where the protests came from is to acknowledge the dirty secret of Republican fiscal irresponsibility and to lose the audience they wish to capture.

History is inconvenient, and thus forgotten.