Never debate a warning
Lee Harris looks at the Tea Party and America's intellectuals at Policy Review:
"The only defense that the marginalized outsider has against this onslaught is to not give a damn. And the fact that the Tea Party movement does not give a damn about the current standards of intellectual respectability makes it problematic for the intellectual,who cannot take the same attitude. But it is also the characteristic that justifies the Tea Party’s claim to be revolutionary. To be sure,this is not the revolution envisioned by Marx, in which the working class overthrows the capitalist class. It is rather the revolt of commonsense against privileged opinion makers, and, by its very nature, it can only be carried out by men and women who are not constrained by the standards of intellectual respectability current in polite company."
"The only defense that the marginalized outsider has against this onslaught is to not give a damn. And the fact that the Tea Party movement does not give a damn about the current standards of intellectual respectability makes it problematic for the intellectual,who cannot take the same attitude. But it is also the characteristic that justifies the Tea Party’s claim to be revolutionary. To be sure,this is not the revolution envisioned by Marx, in which the working class overthrows the capitalist class. It is rather the revolt of commonsense against privileged opinion makers, and, by its very nature, it can only be carried out by men and women who are not constrained by the standards of intellectual respectability current in polite company."
There are intellectuals in the Tea Party, and they do come up with new ideas. They just aren't the Faux-Conservative of the Intelligentsia, and they aren't published in the NYT. Oh darn.
The beauty of Tea is that it is very fluid, and can change quickly. One new idea, doesn't let the movement get swallowed up, only sipped (vs what happened to Conservatives with George Bush, Sr.). Another new idea for the right, create a political movement that is based on subsidiarity, the lowest levels possible controls it, just as the Founders wanted the government to be, and tried to limit its powers.
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James Taranto's Weekend Interview in The Wall Street Journal, titled A Commandeering of the People, is on point. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383702986874016.html
Constitutional scholar Randy Mr. Barnett wants the Supreme Court to adopt a "presumption of liberty," placing the burden on the government to show that a law has a clear basis in Congress's constitutional powers. "The easiest way to explain it is, it would basically apply to all liberty the same basic protection we now apply to speech," he says.
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Great article. He points out what has been bothering people, that hasn't been well articulated.
As the companion to the presumption of liberty, I think we need a Constitutional Amendment for 'Skin in the Game' See my comment here:
http://culturaloffering.com/2010/07/18/the-wordy-ones.aspx#Comment
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