Why trading liberty for security is not consistent with a limited government philosophy.
The tea party movement started as a welcome protest against the alarming growth of federal spending and federal control. It had a strong anti-statist flavor, or seemed to. But judging from the applause for Sarah Palin at its convention, the movement's suspicion of government power is exceeded only by its worship of government power.
Her keynote address at last week's gathering in Nashville may have been the curtain raiser on a 2012 presidential campaign. "I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country," she told Fox News when asked about that option.
I'm glad it was she and not I who first used the word "absurd" in relation to a possible Palin bid for the White House. Because if her speech made anything clear, it's that the shallow, ill-informed, truth-twisting demagogue seen in the 2008 presidential campaign is all she is and all she wants to be.
When it comes to economic affairs, the tea partiers agree that—as Palin put it—"the government that governs least, governs best." When it comes to war and national security, however, her audience apparently thinks there is no such thing as too much government.
The conventioneers applauded when Palin denounced Obama for his approach to the war on terrorists. Why? Because he lets himself be too confined by the annoying limits imposed by the Constitution. "To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law," she declares.
Is her point that Obama is allergic to the use of military power or can't bear to fulfill his responsibility as head of the armed forces? That would come as a surprise to Iraqis, who have seen Obama stick to President Bush's timetable for withdrawal.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI'm extremely relived to see some other libertarians who want nothing to do with the Tea Party. I understand wanting to curb spending, but to these people "big government" is yet another meaningless slogan used to bash Obama and conceal the real reasons they don't like him - he's black, he's educated, and he's not a war nut.
I understand why libertarians were tempted to get join in arms with the tea party, but as you pointed out here, what they claimed to stand for and what they actually stand for are two very different things.
I have no idea what "constitution" they've been reading, because it certainly wasn't the one made in 1787 by our founding fathers - must be some new one written in 2000 by the neocons.