The New York Times Magazine has discovered what everyone who has ever been to a Tea Party meeting already knew: tea parties are a coalition of social conservatives and libertarians. Both are fiscally conservative and so the tea parties focus on fiscal issues and agree to disagree on social issues.
Does this mean the tea parties are losing influence? No, but it does mean that the tea parties will have little influence on the Republican presidential nomination (which can’t be counted as a loss of influence because they never influenced one before). Both sides dislike Romney, but the social conservatives support Santorum while the libertarians support Paul.
Unfortunately for those who are not neoconservatives, that means Romney is likely to be the nominee. But the Antiplanner doesn’t think the president is as important as Congress, and the tea parties are likely to remain influential in many Congressional and local elections.
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The libertarian view that landowners should be able to do what they want with their land, says Norris, “takes away a land owner’s freedom to live in a vibrant downtown setting or a neighborhood where agreed-upon rules produce, to them, a desirable environment.” No, actually, it doesn’t. Through protective covenants that are placed on most new developments today, people can rely on voluntarily agreed-upon rules without government intervention.
If someone wants to live in a vibrant downtown, let them move there: as New Urban planners point out, many cities once zoned residences out of downtowns. Of course, people who want to live downtown should have to pay the price and not depend on subsidies from cities eager to make their downtowns attractive to some “creative class.”
In a larger sense, Norris treats tea partiers and other members of the public as variables to be manipulated to achieve a desired outcome rather than as participants in a democratic society whose voices deserve to be heard. Norris, who equates “freedom” with “taking money from you to subsidize other people’s lifestyle choices,” is ready to discount people’s views if they believe that government should not try to control where people live and how they travel. People like Norris make me glad we have the tea parties.
As the Antiplanner previously noted, many tea partiers are getting involved in urban planning.
If by ‘getting involved’ you mean ‘disrupting the democratic process to stop planning’ then I agree with you Randal.
DS
It is refreshing to see the planners be so honest about how they are not there to listen to the public, but rather are there to impose the latest fad in planning school upon the public.
I have to wonder why if US planners have nothing to do with Agenda 21, why don’t they just write in the planning documents that Agenda 21 is worthless and totally rejected by their public. It would almost make you think that planners don’t reject it….
I have to wonder why if US planners have nothing to do with Agenda 21, why don’t they just write in the planning documents that Agenda 21 is worthless and totally rejected by their public.
Um…because wasting space on a nutter conspiracy theory is a waste of space?
It is refreshing to see the planners be so honest about how they are not there to listen to the public, but rather are there to impose the latest fad
False premises: they keep coming!
DS
Dan wrote:
If by ‘getting involved’ you mean ‘disrupting the democratic process to stop planning’ then I agree with you Randal.
Dan, I don’t presume to speak for Randal, but I get the distinct impression that he regards land use planning processes as suffering from predetermined outcomes, the outcome being what many professional planners want (but based on revealed behavior, not what taxpayer citizens want).
Such planning processes are not especially democratic.
CPZ: when shouting and preventing meetings from proceeding are occurring by a small minority, that is not civil behavior and disrupts the democratic process. This boorish behavior may or may not be compelled by ‘predetermined outcomes’, whatever those might be.
DS
If planners are so afraid of taking up space in their 5,000 page planning documents by rebuking the Agenda 21 nonsense that the public wants rebuked…
… then why have they for 40 years published the “peak oil” conspiracy theory that proved oil would run out in a few years, and thus has proved itself wrong for 37 years in a row?
And there is little doubt planners will continue publishing the “peak oil” conspiracy theory for another 40 years.
Conflation and false premises, they keep ’em a comin’!
DS
I agree, Dan, but some people who read those planning documents and actually believe them.
If the Tea Partiers aren’t making news yelling at Congress-critters at Townhall meetings or meeting up with Glenn Beck by the tens of thousands in D.C., then the conclusion is that the movement is collapsing. Instead, they’re organizing and voting. We’ll see which works best.
Instead, they’re organizing and voting. We’ll see which works best.
I can tell you that ‘organizing’ around here means – all of a sudden – that some low-intelligence mouth-breathers are going to councilmembers’ houses as well as the houses of staff, and threatening them in front of their family. Prompting press releases about what is proper behavior in civil society.
If that is quality, reality-based politicking, I’m a social conservative. And I’ll be volunteering my time at staff houses to exchange governing ideas when modern-day genius Galileos show up at thresholds. The ideas – if there were any – have run out.
DS
O’Toole; some equate the tea party with “the brown shirts of its ideological predecessors of 1920s-1940s Germany,â€
THWM: You both have the same mind set and agenda.