Hey Void

[theVOID]

I seem to remember a previous exchange where you told me that the Bachmanns and Palins don't represent the true heart of the Tea Party. The Tea Party is actually more Ron Paul, libertarian rather than evangelical social conservative. I don't remember how you exactly put it but it was something along the lines of the media paying attention to the screwballs and ignoring the relatively normal libertarian types.

I couldn't help but think of you as I watched Rachael Maddow last night:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heat...t-fiscal-i

It seems that if the Tea Party is all about Ron Paul and his brand of Republican politics, it looks like you guys have been duped by the evangelicals once again.

No way mate you're completely off target here. I said the Tea Party are minority libertarians - I couldn't care less about the Tea Party or what their "true heart" is, I've said dozens of times that I dislike them in general - What I was getting pissed off with was typical tea party rhetoric and policies being equated with libertarian policies and ideas - The two are not the same thing, aside from the "fiscal conservatism" the Tea Party talk about I don't see much in common and even then 'fiscal conservatism' doesn't always mean Free Markets.

What you could be getting confused with is my saying that Bachman and Palin are NOT libertarians and that Ron Paul is about as close to one as you'll find in the Tea Party. Gary Johnston is IMO the most libertarian Republican that I'm aware of, I don't think he associated with the Tea Party though.

..as if we expected it to be any different here? Libertarians vote their economic platform first. Their social views are secondary.

Well yeah, it affects more people. The chances of someone having a miserable life because their economy is tanked by idiotic fiscal policies is much higher than someone having a miserable life because some authoritarian douche won't let them marry another dude - If you're trying to make a change that helps the most people and you believe the fiscal policies ultimately do the most harm, given that you can't expect to get a political majority that cares about both social and economic freedoms it makes perfect sense to vote towards that which you believe will do the most good.

Also, given that the chances of a libertarian convincing a free-market but socially authoritarian conservative that they have no business telling other people how to live their lives is much higher than being able to convince some self-righteous liberal that they have no business spending other people's money or tell them what they can do with their own property and productivity it also makes perfect sense for libertarians to focus their efforts on swaying the conservative vote - All indicators suggest that this policy has been successful, CNN has been tracking the growth of libertarian ideals over several decades and since the so called "campaign for liberty" that sought to infiltrate the republicans the figure has grown more than any other period of time.

A similar thing is happening here, the liberalisation of the ACT party, they were formerly rather conservative free-market proponents but an effort to make them socially liberal has had an impressive effect, they are now the only party aside from the left-wing Green party who support ending the 'war on drugs' and ending the ability for certain ethnic groups to get undemocratic advantages in parliament, they are also more Secular and the membership more Atheistic than other party - It's not exactly analogous because we don't suffer from religious buffoons to anywhere near the extent as you do, but it's the same basic principle of it being easier to sway conservatives towards libertarianism than liberals.

You can debate all day whether or not economic freedom is good but you have to accept that given their beliefs and their goal to gain political support their actions make perfect sense.

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Yeah - they are just smart enough to know they are being fucked over but a little too stupid to realize that it is a bunch of corporate cocksuckers who are doing the fucking!

Except it's not all corporations or even corporations in general, it's those corporations who have government bought and paid for, who not only pay no taxes but actually receive vast sums of public money in the name of 'growing the economy' - the corporations who have their liabilities limited by the government backing them - the pharmaceutical companies who can no longer be sued for making dangerous products because they have a deal with the state - the banks who can't fail even when they do incredibly stupid things because they're 'too big to fail' - the companies who get away with pollution on large scales because they can't be sued by the public - the broadcasters who can openly lie to the public because the very people who are supposed to regulate them are being paid off and the public can no longer sue them for fraud because the regulator has seized that function entirely - the Donald Trumps who get the government to use "Eminent Domain" to seize land from private citizens to build their fucking casinos - the companies who are given such incredible advantages over their competitors so as to make competition impossible meaning the market cannot function properly and prices cannot come down, wages cannot rise and anyone who wants to do anything about it is fucked... As far as corporations being a problem is concerned it undoubtedly these specific types of government-corporate arrangements that do the real harm - None of this is Free Market, It's Corporatism, We both agree that this shit is no good, what we disagree on is the solution.