An Intelligent Tea Partier on Dangers of Concentrated Power

This is a follow up to my last rather unfunny video. This video contains an imaginary conversation between a libertarian, or so-called libertarian tea partier, and a dude who just wants to ask a few questions. The tea partier character is much, much more rude than in my last video. I did this hoping it would make the video funnier. The character isn't portrayed as stupid, though.

I find it confounding that these so-called libertarians, evidently sympathetic with the tea party movement, are gung-ho to criticize government tout court, and believe that small-government is a principle - yet they support policies that would not lead to less centralization of power - but much more, only it would be in the hands of a small sector of the business community.

Small-government is not, of course, a principle. In fact that the phrase "small government" means is not at all transparent, and I suspect different tea party folks mean highly different things when they say it. Presumably, the tea partiers are against "big government" because they believe it infringes on their liberty. There are of course dangers from private power. And consolidated private power in the hands of the managers of large public corporations is just as dangerous as any government power, more so, to the extent that the government alternative is democratic.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• big government
• tea party
• sarah palin
• private power
• jon stewart
• daily show
• liberals
• yale
• economics
• Arcade Fire
• NASCAR
• reagan
• tyranny
• corporations
• capitalism
• socialism
• AIG
• bailout
• power
• class
• communism

[dmoneysk8s96]

This is pretty bad, arcade fire is great, reagan was a terrible president. Xtranormal is for little kids.

[peterfdrucker]

@dmoneysk8s96 Terrible, are you kidding? Iran-Contra, supporting murderous regimes in Central America, supporting Saddam Hussein, South Africa, funding Islamic Fundamentalists, paying tribute @ Bitburg to Nazi soldiers, who Reagan called victims like victims of the Holocaust, and who knows where to stop . . . I think "terrible" stops short, others words like "criminal" come to mind.

Not sure if you got overall sarcasm re: "magic" of the marketplace, which really is a fantasy for little kids

[dmoneysk8s96]

@peterfdrucker i understand that, i guess your message was a little unclear, but know i understand that you are not on the side of the tea party.

[peterfdrucker]

@dmoneysk8s96 Yeah, wow, I definitely suck at this. In my defense, the rhetoric coming out of the right is often so insane it is hard to know where or how to engage. Sorry about that.

Have you the YouTube thing on Skateistan? It's cool, look up "journeyman pictures skateistan" on YouTube or by internet search. Not that I would say Afghanistan needs skateboarding at this moment - but it's a nice project nonetheless.

[SecularNumanist]

Libertarians are against corporations, corporations are a result of big government.

A crap rebuttal with same mistake they all seem to make.

[peterfdrucker]

Further, my observation is that many commentators are obsessed with the correct definition of terms like "libertarian", "conservative", "socialist", "fascist" and so on. What matters in the substance of folks' positions and values, whatever they call themselves. This video is directed toward people who are worried about "big government" but are ready to cede power to business organized in the corporate form. If you don't want to call these people libertarian, it hardly matters.

[Dinyang]

Talk about equivocation.

[peterfdrucker]

@SecularNumanist Hmm. Whatever you think the correct definition of "libertarian" is, there is a way of thinking and talking in the U.S. where folks claim to be for freedom, and against concentrated power, yet cheer on anything labeled "private" even if it is a giant bureaucratic communistic entity like the modern U.S. corporation. You are correct, though, what corporate law will be is a matter of choice; it must be maintained by force and propaganda. The "word" libertarian wasn't used, b/t/w.