‘Walmart Hippies’ and Other Dumb Establishment Theories

09 Mar, 2010 by Doubleplusundead

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David Brooks is always fun to kick around, so let the fun begin.:  Brooks is another one of these columnists who has run with this, “Tea Partiers are just wingnutty versions of hippies, why, they’re no conservatives at all!” idea.:  Oh, sure, there are some small similarities with the New Left, but the idea that the Tea Partiers are an anticonservative movement is asinine.

This line from Brooks stood out,

But the core commonality is this: Members of both movements believe in what you might call mass innocence. Both movements are built on the assumption that the people are pure and virtuous and that evil is introduced into society by corrupt elites and rotten authority structures. “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains,” is how Rousseau put it.

Crap.:  Conservatives and Tea Partiers for the most part do not, and never will adopt a view of mass innocence, and Brooks ought to know better than this, and maybe he does.:  Conservatives and Tea Partiers, while they have adopted populist rhetoric, still recognize that people are by their nature flawed.:  They also are well aware of the fact that too much centralized power in the hands of a small number of flawed individuals has a real tendency to end badly for the public, especially in the modern era.:  See the 20th century for details.:  It is a hell of a lot easier for the individual to keep a decentralized, weak government from going off the rails:  than it is some distant, uncaring, behemoth centralized bureaucracy run by an equally distant and uncaring elite.:  The Tea Party is not about the public as a political force, it is about me, or you, as an individual, as a political force.

Brooks then basically claims that there’s widespread conspiracy theorizing amongst the Tea Partiers, as there was the New Left, as a result of this supposed Rousseauian way of thinking.:  More crap, and I’m dismissing it.:  Cranks attach themselves to any widely public movement, they always have, and always will.:  It’s the only way their craziness gets publicity.

Let’s not forget that a similar percentage of Democrats claimed they believed the Truther BS as Republicans claimed they believe the Birther BS. There is always going to be a good percentage of both sides that are basically either nuts, or so fiercely partisan they’re willing to take on any insane conspiracy theory as a cudgel to use against the political opposition.:  Much of the conspiracy theorizing on both sides is an expression of a feeling of powerlessness.:  “Mass innocence” thinking as source for conspiracy theorizing is silly.

Apparently, because of this supposed tendency to conspiracy theorize makes Tea Partiers and conservatives worried that the establishment will try and infiltrate, co-opt or corrupt their movement.:  Fear that the establishment might try and co-opt their movement…hmm, wonder why they’d think that?

Brooks notes the development of conservative thinktanks and other organizations in the 60s and 70s, and then says,

But the Tea Partiers are closer to the New Left. They don’t seek to form a counter-establishment because they don’t believe in establishments or in authority structures. They believe in the spontaneous uprising of participatory democracy. They believe in mass action and the politics of barricades, not in structure and organization. As one activist put it recently on a Tea Party blog: “We reject the idea that the Tea Party Movement is ‘led’ by anyone other than the millions of average citizens who make it up.”

FAIL.:  Brooks is either completely clueless, or he’s being dishonest.: :  Tea Partiers believe in establishments and authority structures, they simply reject the current layout of establishments and authority structures in favor of a more decentralized system, having correctly identified too much centralized power as a major problem in this nation.

As for the lack of leadership in the Tea Party movement, it’s actually a pretty handy defensive mechanism.: :  One of the chronic problems facing conservatives is that any individual conservative that becomes prominent in any way is isolated and attacked relentlessly by the left and their allies in the media until they are damaged or destroyed.:  One can look at the endlessly vicious attacks on Sarah Palin by both the left and media as a perfect example of this in action.:  It tends to demoralize people and can make establishment and leaders nervous about taking a bold stand against the left.:  Regarding the Tea Parties’ lack of leaders, anyone familiar with how a swarm of insects attacks understands how this works, it’s much more difficult to single out targets and often very disorienting, and the results on the much larger entity are often devastating.

For this reason, both the New Left and the Tea Party movement are radically anticonservative. Conservatism is built on the idea of original sin – on the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty. To remedy our fallen condition, conservatives believe in civilization – in social structures, permanent institutions and just authorities, which embody the accumulated wisdom of the ages and structure individual longings.

This is, yes, I’ll say it, an outrageous claim.:  Part of the Tea Party and conservative movement’s opposition is based on the fact that the continued centralization and growth of power in DC is destroying traditional American social structures, institutions and authorities.:  They don’t oppose these concepts, they oppose the federal government’s efforts to seize and usurp them.

Now, enough of Brooks, let’s take a look at John Feehery of the Daily Caller’s post in support of Brooks, and says he’d add the following,

True conservatives value one thing over any thing else: societal stability.