The many branches of the tea party movement have created a virtual marketplace for new ideas, effective innovations and creative tactics. Best practices come from the ground up, around kitchen tables, from Facebook friends, at weekly book clubs, or on Twitter feeds. This is beautiful chaos -- or, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek put it, "spontaneous order."
Decentralization, not top-down hierarchy, is the best way to maximize the contributions of people and their personal knowledge. Let the leaders be the activists who have the best knowledge of local personalities and issues. In the real world, this is common sense. In Washington, D.C., this is considered radical.
The big-government crowd is drawn to the compulsory nature of centralized authority. They can't imagine an undirected social order. Someone needs to be in charge -- someone who knows better. Big government is audacious and conceited.
By definition, government is the means by which citizens are forced to do that which they would not do voluntarily. Like pay high taxes. Or redistribute tax dollars to bail out the broken, bloated pension systems of state government employees. Or purchase, by federal mandate, a government-defined health-insurance plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary or unwanted.
Yeah, dude! Everything should be like that! Let's decentralize our jobs and elect our bosses! No authority without the consent of those affected!
And if government is the means by which citizens are forced to do that which they would not do voluntarily, then surely it must be replaced by some form of voluntary association!
Under conditions of inequality, "less government" is hardly sufficient: it only ensures that the weakest citizens are forced to do that which they would not do voluntarily, while the powerful act without restriction.
A good tea partier is a consistent tea partier! Don't be a Dick like Armey! That clown has dedicated his career to "the compulsory nature of centralized authority," in standard Republican fashion -- by wielding it as a weapon of the rich. Don't let his cries of "big government" condemn any other principle than when it is half-heartedly extended as a shield for the poor!
One can always "reduce the size of government" by favoring certain groups over others. That is why you must either come to an understanding of which "group" you fall into, socially and economically, and work politically on its behalf; or stop playing the game altogether and abolish centralized authority-as-arbiter of the rights of persons once and for all!
1 comment:
Hoo god, the irony is breathtaking.
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