So argues R. Emmett Tyrrell in the American Spectator. And yet, the commentators seem not to believe him — the reason being, I suspect, having much to do with the fact that the GOP establishment has been fighting the TEA Partiers in Congress, in the media, and, finally, during the GOP primary. Reducing them to caricatures. Dismissing them as naive, unhelpful, dangerous, and an embarrassment. Hairy-footed Hobbits who simply don’t know their place and who had best learn to fall in line.
And the establishment won out, securing the nomination for Romney.
— Who, incidentally, has racked up a few TEA Party “leader” endorsements, despite a record of policy support that is antithetical to the original aims of the movement, and a message that is less about small government than it is about the efficient management of our lives by a better government, which may be a bit smaller, sure, but let’s not go getting crazy!
Just how many erstwhile “conservatives” in the messaging industry the GOP establishment managed in one way or another to coopt — and how — is anybody’s guess.
So yeah, while I appreciate that the TEA Party has engaged in grassroots organizing and is concentrating on local elections, I suspect — cynically — that on an organizational level they are now just another arm of the GOP Party, meant to take advantage a base looking to be roused and inspired, with the goal being to pick up the kinds of numbers the Party needs, ultimately, to secure power and rule comfortably from the status quo.
Sorry to piss in liberty’s Cheerios, but it is what it is. Don’t believe me? Count how many of the bloggers invited to the latest TEA Party-ish BlogCon were Romney boosters. And despair.
As I do.
FTFY.
The only thing they’ve done about the election is set up a rigged test for the proposition that elections matter.
Yes. Which is why we can suspect that those more primally attached to the political-philosophical fundamentals with which the tea parties began are turning their thoughts to replacing the republican party with a party better representative of their thoughts, aims and objectives. They know, do these (do we) that they’ll never find agreement with this republican party. The declaration has been made [republicans: we don’t want you, nor do we want your principles]. The declaration has therefore accepted. We’ll look to ourselves, thanks very much, republicans.
therefore been accepted (meant to say)
What, we expected the ruling class portion of the GOP to roll over and play dead within one election cycle?
The Tea Party will win some and lose some, like any other faction. FIDO and ABO!
Oops. I meant nomination, McGehee. I’ll fix it.
a message that is less about small government than it is about the efficient management of our lives by a better government, which may be a bit smaller, sure
Romney’s campaign phones to say if efficient management in fact requires a larger government after all, then shut up and get in line.
My Tea party was over when I noticed that all the people who worked on the staff of the GOPer who got primaried out suddenly became local Tea Party “leaders”.
That was before the general in 2010. I can’t sit and cheer for bullshit Tea Party speeches by the guy who wrote the letter to the editor about how “No Child Left Behind” was “at its core” the “most conservative” legislation enacted since the New Deal.
It’s bullshit.
And Sean Hannity.
It’s hard for me to take anything Tyrrell says seriously when he looks and sounds so much like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley. It’s not fair, and I know it means I’ll never write for National Review again*, but it’s true.
*not meant to imply that I ever have written for National Review, but I did write to them once (sort of ) to cancel my own damn subscription.
Tyrell has always been hard for me to take seriously. He always looks put-upon. And he’s kind of an old lady.
If Boehner is primaried I’ll be a believer.
The establishment GOP have done a bang-up job at infiltrating, perverting, and de-fanging the Tea Party upstarts that caused them so much trouble in 2010, especially at the national level. But while their efforts at co-opting the organization have been wildly successful, I think they’ll find their efforts at co-opting the actual popular movement much less so. Few see the low-profile work being done, because, well, it’s low-profile.
There are millions of us who simply do not want to be ruled, no matter the color of the livery. We do not want to see sloth rewarded, nor industry punished. We do not want our children sold into indentured servitude. Even if the spokesmen are co-opted, the demands are not going away. Our would-be rulers will need to learn that, one way or another.
You can (maybe) write for National Review again. You just can’t write for the American Spectator.
Tyrell had the Boy President’s number long before anyone else did, as I recall.
If watching pseudo-intellectuals prove they are pseudo-intellectuals in an attempt to get brownie points is your thing, I recommend this article at AT:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/race_iq_and_derbyshires_kids.html
Some real gems in there, especially this one:
Statistics can, at best, help us to understand collective numerical probabilities — and only those.
No shit Sherlock.
Primary Boner and the rest of his ilk. They’re a bunch of tools.
He had his chance and he blew it. Next!
So now we have the Tea Party (icky, crazy,indefensible) and the BS T-Party (safe, smart, helpful).
Great. Clusterfuck achieved maggots. Clusterfuck achieved.
Yeah, and did you know that you can get so much more milk from the BST Party?
Oh, wait…
**”On the contrary, Plato — a far greater authority on human nature, I daresay, than any IQ test designer — warns that the man capable of the greatest good is also necessarily capable of the greatest evil. In other words, the most gifted are the most dangerous, which is why good moral education is so vital. If Plato is right, then one ought to suppose that the more intellectually gifted race is the one more likely to produce truly dangerous individuals, particularly in a place or time of degraded moral guidance. ” **
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/race_iq_and_derbyshires_kids.html#ixzz1rrXeHqU3 ”
Yeah we can argue cherry picked bits and scraps of Plato versus statistics we don’t like. That’s a valid approach right? It works when you bring up Anselm to block arguments stemming from empiricism right? And of course WE ALL KNOW that most of the incidental murders and injuries in this country are the work of the gifted. The jails are full of the gifted. We all live in fear of ballet dancers and humorous anecdote spinners. no doubt that’s why Rod Serling’s dystopian short story “Examination Day” is so beloved and read around cozy fires during the holidays. It’s about a society maintaining the citizen’s safety from the gifted.
So, was Derb labeled dangerous to National review because he was gifted? Let’s all grab our cocks or rub the bean and ask Plato.
**”In fact, history would seem to bear this out (assuming Derbyshire’s IQ standards are correct). Quickly create for yourself a list of the ten most bloodthirstily inhuman characters in history — how many of them fall into each of the three main racial groups? **
Does this guy think that Derb is worried about his kids going to events with Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao Tse Dung, Robert Mugabe, and Pol Pot camps? Who did most of the actual “in the field” skull cracking for those guys? I’m gonna go with thugs myself but use your lifeline to call and ask Plato if you need to.
This is the lamest pile of sloppy lazy cerebral feces I have seen in quite a while. It’s like the humanities had an accident in the neatly creased pants of reason. I’m not saying that it’s indefensible but it’s sure not the hill I’d choose to die on.
Bovine Somatotropin Party
Almost Milked enough already but still willing to settle for just being milked a little slower.
And of course WE ALL KNOW that most of the incidental murders and injuries in this country are the work of the gifted. The jails are full of the gifted.
Street crimes are mostly the work of double-digit IQs. Bad neighborhoods, delinquency, tagging, street gangs, “white trash”: all that detritus results from people making colossally stoopid decisions (which their descendants imitate for generations).
When the gifted go criminal, they end up in Goldman Sachs and the White House and NASA GISS, where the crimes they craft are widespread, monstrous, systematic, and clothed in the glorious robes of Progress.
The stoopid who commit crime are too stoopid to avoid being caught and sent to jail. The smart who commit crime enshrine their crimes in Law.
Plato is right: the intelligent people who are bad end up wreaking more havoc than the common street criminals.
Turns out poverty doesn’t cause crime, it just determines which kinds of crime you’ll commit.
R. Emmett Tyrell needs to make more of them Daryl Hannah clones like he did in Blade Runner.
Wait. What?
It is evident from Derb’s essay that he considers most inner-city blacks to be dangerous to whites, moreso than any other race in the U.S.
It is also evident that Derb believes that poor performance on I.Q. tests has a causal relationship to ghetto behavior.
We’re more afraid of blue-collar crimes than white-collar crimes, because the latter don’t involve physical beatings and break-ins and other immediate things; however, you could argue that the white-collar crimes screw up society worse than the former, on account of them being more pervasive and systematic.
Blue-collar crime is tied to location; white-collar crime is everywhere.
I’ve long said that people aren’t criminals because they are poor. They are poor bcause they are criminals.
“Plato is right: the intelligent people who are bad end up wreaking more havoc than the common street criminals.”
They generally accomplish most of their havok with the aid of the common street criminals and thugs who do the actual smashing, shooting and burning.
And again, I’m trying to relate the lack of any meaningful congruency of this Platonic observation about who is REALLY dangerous to the actual text and context of Derbyshire’s Doom which was about his kids being at risk in day to day life.
…you could argue that the white-collar crimes screw up society worse than the former, on account of them being more pervasive and systematic.
I’d argue that white-collar crime is pervasive enough that it has transcended the role of screwing up society. Rather, it is society.
Seriously: how much of your life is spent jumping through hoops in order to satisfy some procedure designed to prevent theft or fraud? How much point-of-sale presentation of credentials? How much countersigned triplicate paperwork? How much regulation and compliance?
Every bloody thing we do has to be documented and passed through Legal, who happily take their cut based not on the value they add, but on the system they’ve set up to enrich themselves, one little paper cut at a time.
The ‘screwing up’ phase ended long ago. We’re living in Brazil now.
And I’ll add my voice to the chorus of those noting that the really smart criminals — the dictators, regulators, and masterminds — achieve their power on the backs of the mob. Whether it’s providing muscle or votes, the truth is that you can’t get anywhere without a big crowd of dim people to empower you.
We’re living in Brazil now.
My Brazilian coworker would disagree. She says she and her friends used to try to reform the government, but after living here and in Japan and seeing how much better it is (better=functional), she’s given up on Brazil.
Our only hope is for the federal gubmint to dissolve and leave enclaves of law & order among the rest of us.
Squid says April 12, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Ha! But you don’t need no ID to vote.*
*I’m Eric Holder, and I approve this message.
All this talk of far away earthquakes and tsunamis. Yes, the swell took out a few rickety bamboo houses. Pish tosh. Look, the tide’s gone out.
“little pig little pig let me in,” said the tsunami, politely.
“NOT BY THE HAIR OF MY CHINNY CHIN CHIN,” replied the wee little pig in a tone what he hoped sounded much more confident than he was feeling at the moment.
Tea for the Tillerman
Tea for the Tillerman. Nice song, short song, but now I have this incredible urge to find Salman Rushdie.
Nominating a squish like Romney doesn’t indicate the Tea Party is over. It takes time for a movement like t his to penetrate the Establishment. There were a number of Tea Party candidates elected to Congress in 2010 – if they continue to win elections and advance in the party leadership, eventually, you’ll have alot more true conservatives in higher ranking committee slots and chairing committees. The Tea Party/Conservative movement has made great strides, against big obstacles, in only 2 years. Imagine what we can do in 4 years? In 8 years? and with viable conservative candidates like Ryan waiting in the wings, the future could be bright.
Four or eight years with him as the de facto head of the Republican Party though? Whole ‘nother story.
My Brazilian coworker would disagree.
I meant Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, not the country. Apologies for the ambiguity.
BlogCon? Tabitha Hale has almost four years of experience doing what she does Jeff.
The good things about the Tea Party is it is not a political party. It is more of a grass roots movement. And it is not easily co-opted. It may change, but it is not going away. If Obama wins, it will remain. If Romney wins, I predict if he starts going all Rovian, there will be a reaction from the tea party. Romney is better than Obama, but Romney cannot be trusted, but he needs to be watched just as closely.
Not to take a slap at you, Matt, or any other tea partiers here. But I’ve been hearing the same “change the GOP from within ” stuff for a looong time now, with the same results and worse. I think it’s a pipe dream.
And I don’t know how much ‘time’ you all think we have, but I’m thinking less than 7 months if the Big O wins reelection.
How quaint. Almost as quaint as George Zimmerman thinking all he had to do was just tell the prosecutor the truth and everything would turn out fine.
Just stay away from me with that wax, ‘kay?
Nominating a squish like Romney doesn’t indicate the Tea Party is over.
Perhaps not, but it is another indicator that America is over.
But I’ve been hearing the same “change the GOP from within ” stuff for a looong time now, with the same results and worse.
I maintain that a repeat of 2010 would send the old guard packing. Which is why they’ve devoted so much effort to making sure it doesn’t happen.
To which ‘old guard’ do you refer, Squid?
Seems like in the long run, it always ends up as “meet the new guard, same as the old guard”.
Not to take a slap at you, Matt, or any other tea partiers here. But I’ve been hearing the same “change the GOP from within ” stuff for a looong time now, with the same results and worse. I think it’s a pipe dream.
You prefer the 3rd Party delusion, which has a habit of baiting-and-switching the American voter every couple of decades?
How quaint. Almost as quaint as George Zimmerman thinking all he had to do was just tell the prosecutor the truth and everything would turn out fine.
So we might as well not fight back at all, then? Why bother blogging about the Liberal Media Lies about the case, with that reasoning?
I’ll tell you why:
1. Because you have to start *somewhere*, and
2. The city (or life) you save from burning (or brick smashing) might just be your own.