My parents, fairly ordinary, decent Americans, did not go to an “End the Fed” protest yesterday, but they did go to one of the four Connecticut Tea Party protests that occurred a week and a half ago. Good for them.
Note that my parents were not moved to rally against the government and in favor of keeping their money (for example) the last seventeen times Cass Sunstein wrote that he feels a vague, roundabout sympathy for market-like mechanisms, nor when Al Gore claimed back in the 90s that he wanted to “reinvent” government. The right-wing-sounding Tea Parties, by contrast, did cause them (and independents and lots of apolitical normal folk) to rally against the government. Any remaining “liberaltarians” might like to keep that in mind, if they even (sincerely) still see resistance to government as the purpose of their movement — and give a damn about making any popular progress.
Incidentally, I’ve long thought that tapping into the American Revolution vibe would be a great way to enlist history-conscious but blue-leaning New England to libertarian causes, and perhaps the several Tea Party rallies there are evidence the blood of minutemen has not yet been thinned completely.
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A big theme of the Tea Party protests was government’s unresponsiveness to the pain of taxpayers — but I will admit government is often too responsive, as in this story (relevant to the carnivore/vegan conflict alluded to in several of my recent blog entries and likely to be discussed again at our big May 6 debate): a report of a person who called 911 (and apparently got a response) over not getting enough shrimp in her fried rice at a restaurant.
And speaking of the struggle between humans and their prey, let’s observe a moment of silence and take another look at that painting I recently linked to of Bea Arthur (who has just passed away) wrestling velociraptors.
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