Doonesbury Say What?

[thewayne]

Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.
--Tea Party Patriots founder Kelly Khuri

I freely admit that I'm anti-Tea Party. Perhaps if they were the Teal Party I'd support 'em as I think it's a very nice color. My main problem is that they seem to be purely reactionary anti-Government and anti-Administration and I haven't seen any positive, constructive suggestions, just stuff like "repeal health care" and "preserve the Bush tax cuts". I've read up a bit on the Birchers in the past and decided to refresh that knowledge with a quick pass through Wikipedia and came across a great quote by Ayn Rand: "What is wrong with them is that they don't seem to have any specific, clearly defined political philosophy... I consider the Birch Society futile, because they are not for Capitalism but merely against Communism." She said this in an interview in Playboy.

I'm also not fond of Randism as a political/economic theory, and though I disagree with her on many things, I think this is a great quote. I've believed for a long time that a paraphrase of that last part is an extreme indictment of American foreign policy for the last hundred years: we weren't pro-Democracy, just anti-Communism. I'm not saying that Communism is a good thing, just that it could have been fought better.

Comments

[silveradept]

Yeah, that pretty well sums things up - anti-Government, no plan in place if they get their way. I guess that's why they grafted on to the Republicans - thy will at least have a plan for governance after they achieve the Tea Party's ends and then jettison them in a vain search for credibility