Commentary By Ron Beasley
The Tea Party crowd is constantly talking about the founding fathers and the constitution but are blissfully ignorant of both. Steven Thomma of McClatchy explains that conservatives are busy rewriting history and this is the history that the Tea Party members are hearing.
In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working
to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American
history, often to slam liberals, promote Republicans and reinforce their
positions in today's politics.The Jamestown settlers?
Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors
made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government.Theodore
Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he
not end the Great Depression, he also created it.Joe McCarthy?
Liberals lied about him. He was a hero.
The sociopathic fascist Dick Armey is at the forefront.
Steven Taylor is willing to give Armey the benefit of doubt:At the same event, Armey urged people to read the Federalist Papers
as a guide to the sentiments of the tea party movement."The
small-government conservative movement, which includes people who call
themselves the tea party patriots and so forth, is about the principles
of liberty as embodied in the Constitution, the understanding of which
is fleshed out if you read things like the Federalist Papers," Armey
said.Others such as Democrats and the news media, "people here
who do not cherish America the way we do," don't understand because
"they did not read the Federalist Papers," he said.A member of
the audience asked Armey how the Federalist Papers could be such a tea
party manifesto when they were written largely by Alexander Hamilton,
who the questioner said "was widely regarded then and now as an advocate
of a strong central government."Armey ridiculed the very
suggestion."Widely regarded by whom?" he asked. "Today's modern,
ill-informed political science professors? . . . I just doubt that was
the case, in fact, about Hamilton."Hamilton, however, was an
unapologetic advocate of a strong central government, one that plays an
active role in the economy and is led by a president named for life and
thus beyond the emotions of the people. Hamilton also pushed for excise
taxes and customs duties to pay down federal debt.In fact, Ian
Finseth said in a history written for the University of Virginia, others
at the constitutional convention "thought his proposals went too far in
strengthening the central government."
I don�t know if Armey is being disingenuous, forgetful, or ignorant here, but that Hamilton was a hardcore supporter of not only a central bank, but a strong central government is incontrovertible and is not an invention of �ill-informed political science professors.� Indeed, one of the first major political battles in the young republic was between Hamilton and his supporters and Jefferson and his over the question of things like a bank and other areas of economic policy (like the debt that the states had accumulated prior to the installation of the Constitution of 1789).
It is somewhat shocking that someone with a Ph.D. in Economics wouldn�t know about the basic early debates over political economy at the early goings of the country�s history. And one doesn�t have to take the word of political scientists or historians on these counts, as one can easily see the views of persons from that era in their own writings.
I'm not, Armey is lying and knows it. The Republican's success has largely been the result of a misinformation campaign targeting those who don't know better.
"The sociopathic fascist Dick Armey"
ReplyDeleteYou might want to calm the hyperbole a tad Ron or you'll have no good adjectives left to use when an actual fascist appears on the political scene.:)
Hamilton was an advocate of a strong central government and - with Madison, Franklin, Adams and Washington - was deeply concerned about the obvious dysfunctionality of the Articles of Confederation. Hamilton and others were pushing to revise the articles years prior to the calling of the Convention.
However, some caveats need to be kept in mind. First, Hamilton still wanted a *republican* government with checks and balances, basically an improved form of the unwritten English constitution. This was still a fairly radical political position in an age of monarchy and all but the most extreme of the founding fathers - the Sam Adams, Tom Paine, Patrick Henry types - shared Hamilton's general admiration for England's constitutional history.
Secondly, Hamilton's outlier proposals for a quasi-monarchial executive, while probably his personal preference, were not something Hamilton imagined to be likely to be accepted. He was a shrewd politician and did not make those arguments in the Federalist Papers (nor would Madison have joined Hamilton in making them, being Jefferson's political protege).
So while Hamilton was a proponent of a relatively powerful central government, he did not argue that the Constitution whose ratification he sought would have those results in The Federalist Papers. He was at pains, frequently, to reassure moderates and undecided men that Federal power would be adequately constrained and balanced under the Constitution.
zenpundit
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right although I suspect Mr Armey would be happy with a Mussolini style fascist government. I think the thing that really bothers me is that the tea party folks are jumping through hoops for Armey and his fingerprints are all over everything that is making their lives miserable.
Hi Ron
ReplyDeleteWe badly need a middle class party with anti-oligarchy policies that make possible creative action, economic or political, to grow from the bottom up.
The tea party ppl are angry but not always well focused or even informed about what they are angry about. Nor are they a party. Getting jazzed up on TV with demonstrations might tweak the powerful a little, but actually having power means breaking on to state ballots or, at a minimum, being verifiably responsible for "secure" politicians being voted out of office. Are the tea partiers organized enough to do either of those things?
It would be good if they were (but I don't think they will amount to much). Both parties need to be shaken up and become frightened enough to scale back the egregious corruption
Michael Lind put up "Glenn Beck is the new Abbie Hoffman" in Salon (Feb 23), a curious image of Tea Party activists as the New Hippies. David Brooks picked up the theme and ran with it in The Wal-Mart Hippies a few days later and Alexander Zaitchik tore both of them apart with "Dear David Brooks, Glenn Beck is NOT the New Abbie Hoffman. Trust Us..." (March 21).
ReplyDeleteI wanted to riff on the theme but couldn't think of anything new to add. I agree with Zaitchik that this new counterculture phenomenon is nowhere as well-read or coherent as the Yippies (Abbie Hoffman's correct designation -- referring to Hippies as �glassy eyed zombies�). Tearing the idea to shreds he says...
Leaving aside the fact that the famous concert in upstate New York was not a New Left event, the differences between Woodstock and Wal-Mart are not exactly minor. There is a vast and defining gulf separating the acts of screwing in the mud on acid, and bargain shopping for a new plasma screen on which to watch Fox News. Brooks is clearly proud of his term �Wal-Mart Hippies� (which he recently repeated during an appearance on the �Colbert Report�) but the phrase is oxymoronic. There is little meaningful commonality between a youth movement based on the quest for authenticity, beauty and release, and a largely geriatric one based on anger, ignorance and fear.
But back to the New Left. Unlike Tea Party conservatism, the New Left from its earliest stirrings to its final crack-up was an intellectual movement, based not just on deeds and street protest, but also on books and ideas. It incubated during the late 1950s and early �60s on the state campuses of Wisconsin, Michigan and California, inspired by historians, social scientists and activists-theorists on the non-Communist left.
That, and much more. I would add that yesterday's Hippies and Yippies became what passes for contemporary culture, whatever that may be. I was pleased to see Bill Clinton finally get into the White House (inspired that he, too, was against the Vietnam War, was a Rhodes scholar and was married with a smart, no-nonsense woman who could hold her own in a political debate in a way that was unthinkable for previous first ladies). But the moral turpitude of the Sixties and an unexpected accommodation with big-shot interests and Republican neocons came with the package and nearly wiped out other political advances.
The bright spot I see is a swelling diversity among voters. Despite the influence of a few Black, Latino or Asian power-broker/millionaire types, multi-generational wealth and political power is almost exclusively old and white. I see a time when the old forms will be forced to change to a less corrupt model in response to the sheer numbers of diverse groups for whom no one accommodation will any longer be effective.