When Not Being Conservative Enough Goes Wrong

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.

Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform -- a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation -- and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a "myth," sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting "efforts to create a one world government."

via washingtonpost.com

This is what happens when unelected extremist become the voice of your party. Governing and working in Congress is much different than spouting off on an entertainment cable show.

Think tanks got us involved in the neo-con wars of Bush. Look what the Tea Party offers:

The Maine Republicans a week ago rejected a platform proclaiming that "we believe that the proper role of government is to help provide for those who can not help themselves"; that "we believe in ensuring that our children have access to the best educational opportunities"; and that "every person's dignity, freedom, liberty, ability and responsibility must be honored."

In its place, they approved a document invoking the Tea Party movement and Ron Paul and insisting that "health care is not a right." The new platform demands: "Eliminate motor voter"; "Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child"; "Eliminate the Department of Education"; "Arrest and detain . . . anyone here illegally, and then deport, period."

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Sullivan: Why I'm Passing On Tea

Over the last decade, it is surely evident that big government has come back with a vengeance. And one has to grasp that part of the tea-party anger is pent up from the Bush years. Most of the rational tea-partiers accept that the GOP has been as bad - if not worse - than the Democrats on spending, borrowing and the size and scope of government in recent years. They repressed this anger during the Bush years out of partisan loyalty. Now, they're taking it all out on the newbie.

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Andrew Sullivan is on the mark when discussing the "cultural vents, wrapped up with some ugly Dixie-like strands" called Tea Partiers.

I like this Republican call out: "They both support lower taxation and yet bemoan the fact that so many Americans do not pay any income tax."

Sullivan also sums up their take on anything Washington as "the childish reduction of necessary trade-offs as an apocalyptic battle between freedom and slavery."

Their cultural hostility to Obama, while intense, reflects a "lack of seriousness [and] is complemented by a near-fanatical cultural alienation from the modern world."

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com