Whats the difference between Libertarians and the Tea Party?

This video seems pretty accurate on the differences

Libertarians Once Again Getting Screwed?

Libertarians are a naturally skeptical bunch when it comes to politics and political trends. Much of our current skepticism is that will people finally reject statism and elect pro-liberty candidates? Well the sentiment among Libertarian bloggers is that no they haven't and the mentality of "...anyone but the Democrats" is still the dominate thought. Laurence Vance of LewRockwell.com points out here and here that the Republican Pledge to America is nothing but junk and that's just the part on health care. Doug Mataconis over at Below the Beltway shares the same cynicism of Tea Party Candidates Christine O’Donnell and Carl Paladino.

Some say that such cynicism is unwarranted and takes away from the goal of fighting statism. I say it's healthy to see that is just molding into kicking out hard blue statism to putting soft red statism in it's place. You would think this kind of skepticism would actually resonate with Conservatives, apparently it did but not in the correct way. Melissa Clouthier at Liberty Pundits apparently does not like it when us Libertarians refuse to buy what Conservatives sell.

This had to be my favorite quote in the piece;

And then, the libertarians whine about why they never get A Real Seat at the Republican table. Uh, maybe if you guys actually acted like you were on the team instead of pretending to be some sort of blind line judge, you’d be taken more seriously.

Lets take alook at whats currently at the Republican Table shall we;

1. Religious/Social Conservatives
2. Neoconservatives
3. Paleoconservatives

All three of these groups have no interest in personal liberty, preferring to use government thugs to enforce morality of course in the name of the collective. Granted collective is a bad word so they use; "for the children, promoting values" among others. The first two favor a bankrupting foreign policy that does nothing for the security of the nation, which in fact does the complete opposite. The sick joke of it all is that they claim to be pro-life in the same sentence. This could be contributed to the notion that in their eyes some animals are apparently more equal than other animals as we have seen during the New York City Muslim Community Center episode. The Republican table seems to still be filled with nothing but statist Conservatives and Clouthier wonders why Libertarians are cynical about the current election and the future that it entails.

Clouthier's article also brings up the question; Why should Libertarians continue to waste their time in trying to work with Conservatives?

The Libertarian-Conservative Alliance or Conflict (depending on how you look at it) seem to remind me of an episode between a man in his 40s and a man in his late 20s. Both work together but the man in his 40s clearly see himself as the leader and the man in his late 20s just puts up with it for the sake of getting the project done. Everything is going smoothly until the late 20s man points out that something is wrong and just doesn't set right. The man in his 40s just simply dismisses the concerns as being naive and says that it's his way or the highway. This is the way the Tea Party (originally the Ron Paul Revolution) seems to be turning into. The Psychology Survey site MyType has a huge blog post on this very notion.

The way things are trending, it seems that a new movement may be needed, but who knows my cynicism may be proven wrong but I doubt it.

Tea Party and the Empire

Bill Maher makes a point that many in the Tea Party movement have no interest in dismantling the Neoconservative Warfare state. Sadly despite he is Libertarian on social issues he supports income retribution which kills his credibility. He isn't the only one however, James Bovard of the Future of Freedom Foundation writes a piece in the Christian Science Monitor sharing the same sentiments. Thanks to Freedoms Phoenix for the video.

In defense of Dick Armey?

Kinda hard for a Libertarian of any stripe to defend Armey who voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War among other things but I do think he needs to be defended this time.

An article on Politico shows that Armey is under fire from the Religious Right and anti-immigrant (both illegal and legal) groups. Both groups complain that Armey's group FreedomWorks doesn't promote the statist agenda of the Christian Right and that Immigration (legal and illegal) isn't mentioned.FreedomWorks as an organization mainly focuses on economic issues and not on social issues. Neocon Malkin calls him a "amnesty stooge" when in fact during the big amnesty push in 2007 FreedomWorks sent emails to it's supporters condemning amnesty and encouraging them to contact their congressman to oppose it. If I rightly recalled I got at least one notice to contact my representative from them every other day. Just because one isn't as militant on the issue as Pat Buchanan and Frosty Wooldridge doesn't make them amnesty lovers.

Am I calling Armey a Libertarian? No I am certainly not but I rather have him as an ally than statists Malkin and Perkins.

Ron Paul confirms our fears?

Today Ron Paul had confirmed what I had been concerned with for awhile; a Neoconservative take over of his movement. I’ve been skeptical of this since Glenn Beck’s so called conversion to Libertarianism but I’m glad I’m not the only one who was seeing this. Although Beck isn’t the only one, there are plenty of Conservative statists who all of a sudden found their liberty roots the day Obama took office.

My suspicion came about when I saw virtually no mention of foreign policy in most of the MSN covered Tea Parties. Paul has said which is supported with hard facts that our disastrous foreign policy combined with our economic polices are the main reasons why our nation is such in bad shape. Some argue that the lack of mention of foreign policy is to co-exist with Conservatives. Co-exist typically means power sharing not taking over and expecting us to sit down and keep quiet. Sure they agree with us in fiscal policy but addressing only half the problem will only result in a lackluster fix. With the exception of Pat Buchanan what MSM conservatives have openly criticized our foreign policy? The only other conservative that comes to mind is George Will and I would put him in the somewhat column. The truth of the matter is that the bulk of MSM and talk radio conservatives still openly support mindless war no matter what the cost. It’s not even being touted as a Liberty movement; I’ve heard it called a Populist Conservative movement. What is Populist Conservativism? Is it Military and Police Socialism?

Sadly it seems that the Neocons are winning; the election of Scott Brown, Palin being trotted as the new Conservative messiah and the three primary challengers to Paul’s reelection. Currently those are the three I can think of at the top of my head. With the midterm elections in November we cannot afford to be silent for the sake of unity. The Socialist Left and the Neocon Right won’t go quietly so we will have to fight them at every turn. November will be the pop quiz for our movement, we cannot afford to fail or we will be back were we started in 2012.