LP Monday Message: Are you coming to the Tea Party, Paul?
Your Monday Message from the Libertarian Party:
Dear friend,
Will you be attending a Tea Party this Wednesday?
Many Libertarians will, and millions of Americans will be joining them.
I’m, of course, referring to the thousands of “Tax Day Tea Parties” that will be held across the nation on April 15, to coincide with the filing deadline for individual income tax returns.
The Libertarian Party of Illinois got the idea to hold an April 15, 2009 anti-tax “Boston Tea Party” in Chicago way back in December of 2008. On February 10, 2009 they started a Facebook page and began promoting the website throughout the Illinois media.
The idea caught on like wildfire 10 days later, when CNBC personality Rick Santelli, speaking from the floor of the Chicago stock exchange, blasted the Obama administration’s tax and economic policies and urged all Americans to hold their own “tea parties.”
Of course, for the Libertarian Party every day is a Tea Party. We’ve been the only consistently pro-taxpayer party since our founding over 30 years ago.
Compare that to the Republicans. After 10 years of Republican control of Congress, inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent, according to the libertarian Cato Institute. Eight years of a Republican president, six with a Republican-controlled Congress, resulted in bigger government, the biggest expansion of entitlements in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow.
Or the Democrats, who are just as awful. One simply needs to look at Obama’s explosive growth of government and economy-busting deficits to see they’re simply peddling a different brand of Big Government.
But Libertarians are different. Not only do we believe in reducing the size and cost of government – it’s basically a condition of membership.
It might explain why our monthly new membership numbers, that is, the number of people each month who become Libertarian Party members for the first time, has grown each of the last three months. The number of new volunteers to the Libertarian Party is also up 151 percent.
That’s amazing, but that’s not nearly enough to win. We must continue growing by reaching out to the tens of millions of libertarian-leaning voters. It starts by making sure our members are at their local “tea party,” and participating respectfully and listening their neighbors. This is our opportunity to reach out to millions of voters by respectfully listening to them, and letting them know the Libertarian Party fights for lower taxes and less spending, not as a matter of political expediency, but, as a matter of core principle.
Americans are fed up with taxes, fed up with spending, fed up with borrowing and fed up with the Republicans and Democrats. Despite the unpopularity of Obama’s policies, the Republican Party is mired in bottom-basement poll numbers. Tens of millions of libertarian-leaning Americans are “politically homeless.”
When you get right down to it, with our bedrock principles of fiscal responsibility and social tolerance, the Libertarian Party is America’s only mainstream political party.
This Wednesday, we have an opportunity to find those voters a home. If you haven’t already, make sure to attend a local “tea party.” You can even do it on your lunch hour. You can find a list of them promoted by state LP affiliates at http://www.lp.org
.
But it doesn’t end on Thursday. You can bet the Libertarian Party will continue to reach out to tens of millions of Americans fed up with rising taxes and government sprawl.
I’m counting on you to do your part by supporting your local Libertarian Party, attending your local Tea Party and welcoming home the vast, untapped libertarian electorate.
With optimism,
Donny Ferguson
Director of Communications
Libertarian National Committee
Donny.Ferguson@lp.org
50 responses so far ↓
1 Darryl W. Perry // Apr 13, 2009 at 5:36 pm
The political party named Boston Tea Party was formed in 2006 – so Tom Knapp (BTP founder) could legitimately claim to have had the idea 3 years ago for a “new tea party”.
I’m curious how many Republicans would be “protesting” if one of their own was President?!?
http://blog.dwp2016.org/index.php?itemid=396
2 d.eris // Apr 13, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I was wondering how long the LP and the BTP were going to continue to allow conservative Republicans to claim the tea party protests for themselves.
3 Ayn R. Key // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I wrote about an example of them doing so, in spite of the best efforts of the LP and C4L to keep things on their proper course.
Antelope Valley Tea party
4 libertariangirl // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Good job Donny .
Who will be the first to find fault with this post.
5 William Mize // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Libertarian Party: we had the Tea Party idea first but didn’t do jacksh*t about it.
There. Fixed that for them.
6 Thomas L. Knapp // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:33 pm
“Tea parties” have been around for some time.
There used to be a “Tea Party” without the “Boston” in front of it that ran candidates for local office out west, I think.
Also, back in the late 80s or early 90s, there were some talk-radio-induced “mail a teabag to your congresscritter” dustups.
I did find it a bit amusing to see Donny apparently promoting the BTP, though. I wonder if the LNC will charge him with “aiding and abetting” and try to remove him. Or do they just do that to uppity wimmin from California?
7 libertariangirl // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:35 pm
TK__I did find it a bit amusing to see Donny apparently promoting the BTP, though. I wonder if the LNC will charge him with “aiding and abetting” and try to remove him. Or do they just do that to uppity wimmin from California?
ME__LOL, that is ironic and a bit funny isnt it
8 Thomas L. Knapp // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:48 pm
libertariangirl,
Yup!
It was a decent release in any case — to the extent that the “tea party” protests make a difference, L/libertarians are entitled to, and should attempt to claim, an ownership interest. The Republicans only have a problem with fiscal irresponsibility, draconian taxation and ludicrous debt levels when they’re NOT in charge.
9 Darryl W. Perry // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Tom – I wrote something very similar to your last post in my latest article on my blog
http://blog.dwp2016.org/index.php?itemid=396
10 Darryl W. Perry // Apr 13, 2009 at 6:55 pm
PS
Remember there was no “outrage” among the GOP when GWB was leading the largest budget increases EVER!
11 paulie // Apr 13, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I should point out that I wrote the headline. The email subject was “LP Monday Message: Are you coming to the Tea Party, Paul?”. But I found the “we had the idea first” angle more interesting, and it did get us a quick traffic burst.
12 paulie // Apr 13, 2009 at 7:56 pm
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/the_tea_party_movement_whos_in_charge.php
13 Mike Theodore // Apr 13, 2009 at 8:50 pm
“Also, back in the late 80s or early 90s, there were some talk-radio-induced “mail a teabag to your congresscritter” dustups.”
Illinois’s current Governor, Pat Quinn was actually one of the people behind that, although just in this state.
14 sunshinebatman // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:20 pm
the 911troofers were doing meatspace tea parties, in Boston even, before the Boston Tea Party Party virtually did, well, something, I’m sure, but who cares.
15 sunshinebatman // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:20 pm
PS, so there
16 Steve // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:36 pm
FWIW, one of the lead organizers, Eric Odom, was a Bob Barr supporter and doesn’t seem to have a lot of love for the Republican Party. It still feels a bit sketchy when people like Newt Gingrich and Michelle Malkin attach their names to it. Sometimes I wish these Republicans would just go back to what they’re good at – telling us we all support terrorism if we don’t support everything the President says instead of pretending to be libertarian.
17 sunshinebatman // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I would not be anywhere a near a terrorist like Glenn Beck or Rick Perry on the Ides… dangerous.
18 paulie // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Sometimes I wish these Republicans would just go back to what they’re good at – telling us we all support terrorism if we don’t support everything the President says
As soon as one of theirs gets elected they will, but for now that is the job of the Democrats.
19 Sean // Apr 14, 2009 at 10:41 am
They had a tax day protest in New Hampshire last year http://freekeene.com/2008/04/15/keene-tax-day-protest/ Its nothing new.
20 paulie // Apr 14, 2009 at 10:43 am
It’s not exactly the same thing as the tax day protests the LP has been doing for many years.
21 a different paul // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:02 am
I was active in the LP and attended several tax day tea parties over the past decade in my home area, and believe the practice had been going on long before I was with them. We used to pass out fliers and bags of tea at the main Post Office branch in our county. Sometimes the Post Office would kick us off their grounds and sometimes they wouldn’t. When they did, we just moved to a sidewalk just off the entrance. It was fun.
Good job GOP. Keep taking ideas that worked sooooo well from the LP, and soon you’ll be seen as frivolous, inconsequential, gimmicky and even silly as the LP.
22 LibertarianNotConservative // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:11 am
The tea parties have been co-opted by the Republican establishment in my neck of the woods.
I think Donny’s been attending Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meetings and got played by the conservative activists he’s trying to curry favor with.
23 Erik Geib // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:13 am
I believe the point of the press release was that, contrary to conservative belief, the current big push to host these events was not started by Rick Santelli or his friends.
Also, I don’t think the fact that the LPIL called it a ‘Boston Tea Party’ means that Donny was promoting Knapp’s party, nor necessarily was the LPIL.
Perhaps it could have been worded better, but the LP isn’t trying to say they started the whole ‘tea party’ idea – as others have said, it’s been something many have tried over the years. Instead, what the LP is asserting is that this particular (current) movement to have ‘tea parties’ in conjunction with the usual tax day protesting, supposedly started by Rick Santelli in Chicago, was in fact initiated by the LP in Chicago and that Rick Santelli jumped on board.
24 paulie // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:16 am
I was active in the LP and attended several tax day tea parties over the past decade in my home area, and believe the practice had been going on long before I was with them.
Again, not the same thing.
25 a different paul // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:41 am
“Again, not the same thing.”
Why not? We were protesting government growth and spending on the last day tax filings had to be mailed. How is that different?
26 paulie // Apr 14, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I answered this on another thread.
27 paulie // Apr 14, 2009 at 12:27 pm
http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2009/04/09/telling-tea-party-truth/
28 Thomas L. Knapp // Apr 14, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Erik,
You write:
“Also, I don’t think the fact that the LPIL called it a ‘Boston Tea Party’ means that Donny was promoting Knapp’s party, nor necessarily was the LPIL.”
For the record, my take on that was intended as a joke.
I’ll be attending the St. Louis Tax Day Tea Party tomorrow as an LP activist, and may be a (specifically LP) speaker at the July 4th event.
I’ve advocated since day one that the BTP be/become an internal LP caucus, so I certainly don’t have any heartburn about the LP using the name “tea party” as long as they’re using it for libertarian things
Regards,
Tom Knapp
29 Carol Moore // Apr 14, 2009 at 9:20 pm
The republicans always co-opt the libertarian message til they get in power and then they do what they did since Bush took office – loot and restrict our liberty. What else is new??
30 a different paul // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:13 am
Carol, exactly.
But with the Republicans comes some notice, just because of numbers. So the tax day protests will get at least a little mention in the news. While bad for the LP politically, maybe something good will come out of it.
31 mdh // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:53 am
The GOP has laid claim to the mantle of less taxation for as long as I can remember. The fact is, they talk the talk, but there’s no chance that getting a bunch of people together is going to change anything in terms of the fact that they do not walk the walk.
I had tried to schedule our tea party here for the evening when people could make it. The Republican hi-jacker instead scheduled it for noon on a week day, a sure recipe for people to not be able to make it because of work, etc.
32 a different paul // Apr 15, 2009 at 11:14 am
Actually the debate nationally is now whether these tea parties were a Republican or grassroots idea. The Republicans are contending the protests have no party affiliation, while others are pointing to usual Republican suspects funding the websites, etc.
In all of this, the fact that the idea did originate with a different political party is completely lost.
33 Are Republicans turning into Libertarians? - LDS Mormon Forums // Apr 21, 2009 at 3:30 pm
[...] week’s Tea Party protests had their origins in the libertarian movement. Although many conservative groups were eager to co-opt their purpose, the core of the message — [...]
34 libertariangirl // Apr 21, 2009 at 4:01 pm
If I had to here the Tea Parties were a “conservative grassroots movement” one more time I might have have lost my mind.
while super excited at the large crowds and intense enthusiasm I couldnt help but feel a little sracastic, ecsp when I overheard several folks saying things like ” we should have done this a long time ago”.
I had to patiently remind them that the LP in Nevada had been at the post office or IRS buildings everyyear protesting for as long as I could remember.
35 Former Libertarian Party of Alabama Chair Steve Gordon on Rachel Maddow again discussing Tea Parties | Independent Political Report // Dec 30, 2009 at 9:24 pm
[...] For further background see Libertarian Party: we had the Tea Party idea first [...]
36 Former Libertarian Party of Alabama Chair Steve Gordon on Rachel Maddow again discussing Tea Parties « // Dec 31, 2009 at 2:28 am
[...] For further background see Libertarian Party: we had the Tea Party idea first [...]
37 The Truth Or The Fight » Blog Archive » Subverted Tea Party Movement Told to Embrace Republican Platform // Feb 5, 2010 at 12:52 pm
[...] in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National [...]
38 Subverted Tea Party Movement Told to Embrace Republican Platform | We Are Change Utah // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:15 am
[...] in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National [...]
39 Militant Libertarian » Subverted Tea Party Movement Told to Embrace Republican Platform // Feb 6, 2010 at 9:17 am
[...] in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National [...]
40 Subverted Tea Party Movement Told to Embrace Republican Platform | Republic Broadcasting Network // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:01 pm
[...] in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National [...]
41 FreeWestRadio.com » Blog Archive » Subverted Tea Party Movement Told to Embrace Republican Platform // Feb 7, 2010 at 10:10 am
[...] in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National [...]
42 Gary Ehlenberger // Feb 7, 2010 at 3:28 pm
A must read
Steady-state-economics
http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~mllewis/ENVR%20460%20Horton/New%20Scientist%20the%20folly%20of%20growth.pdf
Gary Ehlenberger
Retired Staff Scientist, Member of the Technical Staff, Motorola
43 Anarchists Plan to Disrupt April 15 Tea Party Protests - Volconvo Debate Forums // Apr 1, 2010 at 10:51 pm
[...] [...]
44 Alpheus // Apr 8, 2010 at 1:09 pm
As a Republican, and now a Libertarian Republican (now that I know that, in Utah at least, I can easily belong to both parties) I would like to explain where I was during George W. Bush’s terms:
First, I didn’t like the Medicare Plan D bit. I wish that had been vetoed. It wasn’t something, at the time, that anyone would have considered protesting…at least not on this level. At the time, I didn’t consider it the extreme threat to our liberties that I do so now.
Second, I *hated* the 2006 Election: after six years of Republicans spending us in the ground, I could sense a general dissatisfaction with them. I voted for a Republican, but I did it with distaste: he *bragged* that he brought money home to his district. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for the Democrat, though, because I knew she would be worse. (That Democrat was Gilibrand).
Third: I think the bailouts was the first signal to ALL Americans that something is really wrong. It was the turning point, and it was where the “Tea Party Spirit” really began to wake up.
Fourth: I voted for McCain. I did it because I didn’t want Barak Obama to win Utah. Obama didn’t, but he still won–and I came to the conclusion that I will never again vote for a politician, unless that politician *earns* my vote. I will never again vote for someone because I fear his opponent; if someone can’t convince enough people to vote for him, he won’t win anyway.
Yes, I get it: we were asleep! It’s only now that I’m becoming aware of just how libertarian I really am! And I’ve made the conscious decision that while I will still stay in the Republican party, with the vain hope that I could push that party in the right direction, I will nonetheless consider myself a Libertarian Republican from here on out.
People get it now. Not just Republicans, but Democrats as well. So, my question is this: what are YOU doing to make sure these people continue to get it, even when (or if) Republicans regain power? I don’t necessarily expect an answer; I’m still trying to find the answer myself.
But please don’t belittle those of us who finally get it. I’ve been to several local Tea Parties. Tea Parties are filled with people who are dismayed by both parties; both parties have betrayed us! And only now am I realizing just how extensive that betrayal has been–and it would delight me to no end to see both parties completely collapse because of it.
45 Alpheus // Apr 8, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I would also add: I look forward to when the Democrats fall out of power. I *don’t* look forward to when (or if) the Republicans re-gain power. They have proven themselves over and over again to be spineless wimps unable to defend liberty when it is most needed. I’m sick of them!
46 and in Duopoly Land .......... Lake // Apr 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm
ditto, as far back as the Nixon – JFK debate in 1960!
47 Online // Jun 16, 2010 at 3:00 am
When you get right down to it, with our bedrock principles of fiscal responsibility and social tolerance, the Libertarian Party is America’s only mainstream political party.
48 qqquit pickin on my peeps // Aug 4, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I’m so old now I teabag the toilet water when I sit on the john! :0 :0
49 libertarianmovement // Nov 1, 2010 at 7:37 pm
We need our “Tea Party” leaders, to publicly announce on MSM that they have no affiliation with the Republicans, that the party ideals are Libertarian. There is so much trash talk from everyone on both sides saying the Tea Party is premature, unorganized, need to get their sh*t together. The Libertarian party has been around for more than 30 years, this needs to be noted. Just putting in my 2 cents, thanks and good luck
50 Lorain County Libertarian Party » Blog Archive // Jul 3, 2012 at 10:29 am
[...] entitlements in 40 years and a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that continues to grow,” writesDonny Ferguson of the Libertarian National Committee. Bush and the Republicans also invaded two sovereign nations [...]
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