Patriot Act Extension Fails, Splitting Tea Party Republicans

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Yes - the TEA Party advocates limited government and assails rising federal deficits.
Yes - the TEA Party sees tax cuts and incentives as a good (and well proven) and a way to stimulate the economy.
Tax Cuts and Incentives DO NOT CAUSE the deficits - the out of control SPENDING by nimrods in Congress cause DEFICITS.
If Congress were to apply the Constitution to all it does, and most specifically, Article 1, Section 8 (the 17 enumerated powers) - our federal budget would be 25% of the current one in place. Elimination of taxation, direct and indirect, of PERSONAL income could be eliminated, and taxes on imports and corporations would be more than adequate to fund our nation's operations.
If Congress would restore much of the powers and duties it has usurped from the States and the People to them, we would have more money in our States and in our pockets, and we would have a chance to see prosperity again in this country.
Our founders understood it best - local control and government serves the people best, the federal government was only meant to handle a few things that were beyond the scope of the individual and State, not be the all encompassing authority of all things.

Michael Frisbee of GA 1:48PM March 17, 2011

Rev G Trask, freedoms have responsibilities and are regulated to preserve freedoms for everyone. Anarchy is the libertarian's dream, liberals are only looking to control anarchy in as much as that every man's liberties don't infringe on the liberties of any other man's liberties. Stoplights and speed limits serve the community to control the chaos roads would be without them.
If we followed Rev G Trask recommendations we'd be hanging witches cuz we don't meet some community religious standard. We put freedoms of religion in place to limit religious controls some would have making everyone abide by some narrow religious standards. Our freedoms of religion helped us shed the state religion owned by the King and run as his feudal estate. The Anglican church was outlawed immediately after the American revolution and most the founding fathers shed their life long religion to get out from under the tyranny of religious domination.
"Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should be not highly rated." - Thomas Paine

Dettrick of VA 8:32PM February 11, 2011

... is what you get when follow liberarianism to its logical conclusion. For example, we should deregulate traffic control (eliminate stoplights, speed limits and the like) and just accept the inevitable carnage that would result as a fact of life. Eliminate food safety laws (and trust that food companies will always do the right thing) and accept that some folks will become part of the collateral damage sure to follow.
May GOD have mercy on us!

Rev G Trask (ret) of ME 9:11PM February 10, 2011

The CPAC NeoCons’ strategy of insidiously infiltrating the Tea Party movement, by politically exploiting conservative patriots, such a Palin, is failing because perceptive leading conservatives such a Ron Paul, Patrick Buchanan, Michelle Bachmann and many others know who they are and know their political strategies and tactics. Abraham Foxman, Ben-Ami, Simon Greer, Robert Satloff - notorious lobbyists of the Israel Lobby, the National Jewish Democratic Council, AIPAC and their Neo-Marxist propagandists in the news media - are an intolerable mortal threat to the West. They notoriously serve the aid extorting and warmongering Israeli People, to the extreme detriment of the Americans, British, Europeans, and Arabs. This pernicious warmongering cabal played a leading role in instigating the catastrophically destructive illegal Iraq War, which caused the deaths of many thousands of patriots - Americans, British, Europeans, and Iraqi citizens.

Jeugenen of MA 5:10PM February 10, 2011

In most parts of the country (NY & MN excepted), the two parties (D&R) conspired 100 years ago to make it nearly impossible for new parties to emerge.
If you're disenchanted with our ONLY TWO PARTY system, maybe you could suggest to the various Tea Partiers/Baggers to campaign that the two parties give up their legally-protected places of privilege and let a much freer marketplace of ideas flourish in our elections? Hmmm?

NorthCoastSteven 10:10AM February 10, 2011

If you want more deeply to understand the current state of Libertarian thinking, it would repay you to visit the reason.com Web site. Not the articles themselves; those are of varying sense and usefulness. Read the accompanying comments. A richer mix of somber, prolix profundity and frat-boy scatology would be hard to find. If you can gauge a philosophy by the quality of its fans, most of whom in the Reason universe apparently live in their parents' basements, then the Libertarian movement might as well adopt as its rallying cry "**&$*!@# You, World -- why can't I get a date!!!!!"

Mandy Cat of AZ 6:33PM February 09, 2011

One of the other commenters already pointed this out, but I really want to harp on it, because the majority of people still seem to be lost, including the author of this article.
There are several completely distinct groups within the tea party.
1) Libertarians who want small government and have a very consistent ideology, have been rallying this point for decades, and finally got #2 below to join up with them and call themselves the Tea Party. Ex: Ron Paul
2) Republicans who want small government and are rallying against the recent republican party that talks about small government but spends more than the dems do. Ex: Jim DeMint
3) Neo-Republicans who are doing damage control and trying to co-opt the tea-party's energy into backing them or other Neo-Republican candidates. Ex: Sarah Palin
If the author was actually qualified to write this article, he would have already known this, and not been surprised in the slightest that the tea party seems inconsistent. That inconsistency comes from there being several groups who disagree on major issues, and from the fact that group #3 is internally inconsistent.

Chris of CA 3:51PM February 09, 2011

Which Tea Party? The Ron Paul Tea Party or Sarah "Evita Peron" Palin Party? As usual the Dimocrat/Repuglican paradigm prevails, the playpen cage match continues between the welfare/warfare sock puppets that comprise the existing 2 party system.

bob of WA 3:27PM February 09, 2011

Maybe this will be a wakeup call for those with real journalistic pretensions to start doing some independent thinking regarding who and what the Tea Party movement really is.

Chilli of CA 1:57PM February 09, 2011