Patriot Act vs. "limited government:" the state of the Tea Party revolution

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

So, last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted not to suspend debate on extending certain provisions of the Patriot Act. The freshmen Republicans voted 78-9 for suspending debate. Now, the Act extensions will have to go through the messy debate and amendment process.

My question is, how do those 78 new freshmen Republican congressmen, many of whom ran on a platform of "the government is too bloated, too intrusive into the private lives and freedoms of Americans!," justify trying to ram through the Patriot Act extension without debate, when the Patriot Act is arguably as intrusive as Obama's healthcare reform that they despise so much? You can't even open a bank account without being subject to the Patriot Act's provisions. Sure, I get the whole "protect our country against international terrorism" argument (quoth Michelle Bachman), and I get that for many self-styled small-government types the words "shrink the size of the federal government" apply to everything but national defense, but seriously, how do they reconcile extending the Patriot Act with the promises that won them Congress, reducing the deficit, shrinking the government, and reversing the government's intrusion into private lives?

Because you can ask pretty much any American who is Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent about how the Patriot Act purports to fight terrorism while respecting their individual civil liberties.

Also last week, Republicans failed to get the necessary votes to suspend debate and pass the United Nations Tax Equalization Refund Act, which would demand the return of some $180 million the U.S. overpaid to the United Nations (funny, that, considering how many other UN members are always screaming about how mean and un-supportive the US is WRT the UN). In fact, only two Republicans voted for it! Now, y'all know I'm no fan of the Tea Party, but even I get fed up with the UN's general atmosphere of "Death to America/Israel!" and "We need to appease more cruel dictators!" and wouldn't mind seeing us get every penny of that $180 million back (and hey, let's send it all to Israel, just to piss off the U.N. Commission on Human Rights!). The UN has been one of the great bogeymen of the American right for decades; many conservatives wouldn't cry if we withdrew completely and kicked the UN's headquarters off US soil (I remember, back when I was a conservative myself, the common anti-UN rhetoric). So...why, Tea Partiers, why didn't you take the chance to give the UN a well-deserved black eye?

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

This was really to be expected.

I mean anyone who seriously trusted a Republicrat Party who would elect an old guard establishment type like Boehner to be speaker to actually change their stripes needs to come see me because I have this great Arizona Beachfront real estate deal they have to get in on.

As I said before the election, the true test of the Tea Party is not what happened in 2010 but rather how they react when the Republicrat party inevitably fails to live up to what the Tea Parties expected of them in 2011 - 2012.

For another good example of the utter failure of the Republicrat party see here...

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2011/02/so-far-disappointing.html

"They announce a figure in the neighborhood of $75 billion. Then some reporters, including our own. Jamie Dupree, point out that the Republicans are using the old baseline budgeting trick. That is, they're announcing the budget cut not from present spending levels but from projected increased spending levels in future years. Now that's partially budget cut and partially reductions in future spending increases. This is not the sort of gamesmanship that the tea party voters signed up for last November. The real figure for Republican budget cut proposals? That would be somewhere in the $35 billion range; about one half of what they were trying to pass off to the voters as their grandiose attempt at cutting the federal budget."

Inevitably 2012 will result in 1 of 2 outcomes. A complete overhaul of the Republicrat party establishment, or it's splintering into at least 2 separate parties because the Republicrats in Congress have shown absolutely no ability to live up to the smaller government ideals a huge part of the electorate demands. The only real question is whether it happens before or after the 2012 election.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

This is not inevitable. If the tea party loses steam (and from what I've seen, it has) then it was a one-election movement, and business goes back to normal.