How Andrew Romano gets the Tea Party wrong

A friend sent me a Newsweek piece attacking the Tea Party movement. The column by Andrew Romano claims that those who oppose bigger government are divisive lame-brains who embrace authoritarianism, and it implies the big government advocates are just so much better and brighter.

The title is “How Tea Partiers Get the Constitution Wrong.” The key paragraphs seem to be:

“For leaders like [Abraham] Lincoln and [Barbara] Jordan, the Constitution is a symbol ‘that suppl[ies] an overarching sense of unity even in a society otherwise riddled with conflict,’ as sociologist Robin Williams once wrote. It is an integrative force—the cornerstone of our civil religion.

“The Tea Partiers belong to a different tradition—a tradition of divisive fundamentalism. Like other fundamentalists, they seek refuge from the complexity and confusion of modern life in the comforting embrace of an authoritarian scripture and the imagined past it supposedly represents. Like other fundamentalists, they see in their good book only what they want to see: confirmation of their preexisting beliefs. Like other fundamentalists, they don’t sweat the details, and they ignore all ambiguities. And like other fundamentalists, they make enemies or evildoers of those who disagree with their doctrine.”

Simple-mindedness. I have the feeling the Newsweek writer is filtering out a few facts. Expanding the size and power of government always is divisive, and it should be, if only to generate a healthy debate. Is joining the debate divisive, or a natural response? Expanding the size and power of government also embraces a fundamentally authoritarian idea and imaginary benefits, so it’s hard to stick the authoritarianism-illusion rap to the Tea Party.

As for “not sweating the details,” there is any better example of “not sweating the details” than expanding the size and power of government with trillions of dollars of new debt? Don’t bother designing a system that pays for itself; just close your eyes and borrow. Talk about “taking refuge from complexity”!

All the while, the proponents of bigger government demonize their opponents. Tea Partiers are called tea-baggers, fat-cats, extremists, bigots and divisive fundamentalists. It almost sounds like making evildoers of those who disagree.

On freedom’s side. I’m not a Tea Party member. I don’t even know if you can join. They don’t seem to have reached that stage of organization. But if they’re for expanding freedom, I’m with them. If they’re not, I’ll find out and I’ll oppose them. But Democrats like this Newsweek writer need to acknowledge the flaws in their own arguments. The Constitution may not be perfect, but it is the law, and fortunately the law says we are free.

Frank Warner

Comments

[CJW]

I personally think that a magazine like NewsWeek tat has lost so much sway as to be sold for $1 can't be getting anything but true ideological hacks writing articles for them. I dismiss anything that comes out of NewsWeek.

[Neo]

This is a great example of why there is a "Tea Party." DC just doesn't understand the rest of the country.

[What?]

"Tea Partiers are called tea-baggers, fat-cats, extremists, bigots and divisive fundamentalists. It almost sounds like making evildoers of those who disagree."
Touche'

[Neo]

What are some misconceptions that people have about Tea Parties (and their attendants) in general? That they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever. Those "arguments" are presented by the Dems in order to keep their base of uninformed voters on their side. In my opinion, as soon as you start name-calling, your opinion is immediately deemed invalid!

[CJW]

You're not robbing me of the pleasure of calling Obama the liar-in-chief. His incessant lies validate his new title.

[jj mollo]

As I understand it, the tea party is less fundamentalist in religion than the mainstream conservative movement, more concerned with fiscal issues. It was more derived from libertarian ideas to begin with, e.g. individualism and personal responsibility for oneself. Like the reform party, it has already become somewhat infected with celebrities, Glen Beck being the one who annoys me the most.

When you think about fiscal issues, though, I think you have to understand that government can do some things better than the private sector -- for instance, appropriate regulation of industries that tend toward predatory practices, like banking. I also happen to be a big fan of grand projects, like the moon landing and the recent Hoover Dam bypass bridge.

Fiscally, I think the Democrats have a lot in common with the Tea Party. A balanced budget is extremely important to them after Clinton demonstrated it could lead to prosperity. The tea party members, however, do not in general have any concept how bad the recent economic crisis was, little understanding of how bad things could have been. Bush probably saved the country with the bailout. And the stimulus program was absolutely necessary. Half of it btw was tax cuts. Tea Party members should not let themselves get freaked out by the scary size of the debt. It was a necessary but temporary measure. In the past we have dug ourselves out of these situations by steady increases in GDP leading to enhanced revenues. The trick is to cut spending when times are good, which is politically hard to do.

[CJW]

Clinton didn't demonstrate fiscal responsibility until he was forced to by a Republican congress.

The prosperity under Clinton had less to do with his fiscal policies and more to do with free market forces at work like the commercialization of the internet (that would have happened no matter who was president) and the advent of widespread cell phone use that brought out efficiencies never before seen in doing business.

Of course, commander-in-chief Clinton got frugal and saved a lot of money in the budget by declaring an unearned peace dividend and ignoring the seriousness of militant Islamists in the world and just arbitrarily downsizing the military and intelligence services for the vast majority of his years in office. Then he handed off the undersized intelligence agencies and a military with obsolete equipmnent to his successdor touting a glorious budget surplus that lead us right into 9-11, an event that cost us far more than the budget surplus. Nice blood money that surplus.

[Frank Warner]

JJ, I can agree with you except on the spending part of the "stimulus" and government regulation of banks.

No credible economist argues the "stimulus" spending did any good, and it probably just dug us deeper into a debt hole that will delay a real recovery.

As far as regulating banks, government should help there. But there are government workers interested in the safety and soundness of banks, and there are government officials like Congressman Barney Frank who ignore all the experts' advice and establish a de facto separate $5 trillion banking system by taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with criminally loose standards guaranteed to destroy the economy.

Barney Frank helped write the new financial regulation law, which still exempts Fannie and Freddie from most of its provisions.