Tea Parties — VOICES for REASON

ARC senior fellow Dr. Onkar Ghate has an editorial on FoxNews.com today. “Ayn Rand is everywhere,” he writes, and “her political opponents are growing nervous.” With some Tea Partiers and politicians praising Ayn Rand’s views, what “worries advocates of the welfare state is that they have never before faced any moral opposition.”

Whatever the rhetoric of Republicans and Democrats in the past, they agreed on the basic goal: more and more government controls are necessary to rein in businessmen, “manage” the economy, and minister to those in need.

No matter which party was in power, therefore, we got things like Sarbanes-Oxley, bailouts of GM and Citibank, a huge prescription drug “benefit” and ObamaCare. Politics was a squabble about the efficacy of any proposed controls, not a dispute about the morality or immorality of imposing controls in the first place. As Krugman observes, in years past everyone “accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state.”

But now its advocates sense that this is no longer true, that some Americans are beginning to question the moral legitimacy of the welfare state. To strangle this questioning in the crib, supporters of government controls are trying to persuade their opponents to abandon Rand.

The current tactic is to tell Tea Partiers and “conservatives” that if you take religion seriously, you can’t be a fan of the atheist Ayn Rand. . . .

Dr. Ghate notes that “this much is true. Rand’s moral teachings are fundamentally different from Jesus’ teachings.”  But he goes on to ask the question, “Did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers not reject the Sermon’s advice in creating America?”

Read the rest of the op-ed here.

Image: Wikimedia commons

The Christian Science Monitor has my thoughts on the Tea Party movement and what it needs to succeed. Although the prospects are unfortunately dim, for reasons I give in the article, I do suggest there is a glimmer of hope, if the movement decides to get serious about individualism:

The tea party’s adherents would need to discover the moral principle underlying the often quoted but little understood ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They would need to argue that all schemes that sacrifice the individual to society are morally wrong. And they would need to argue that this country’s most rational and industrious citizens—including business leaders, doctors, health insurers, and taxpayers and productive individuals in all walks of life—are oppressed victims who deserve to be liberated, by permanent repeal of laws and regulations that invade their rights.

In short, the tea party would need to fully embrace individualism as a moral ideal. Although the odds against this are exceedingly large, I think there’s some cause for optimism. For the first time, a resistance movement is looking for answers in Ayn Rand’s writings. From the original public rant that inspired the tea party idea (when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli said “at the end of the day, I’m an Ayn Rander”) to last fall’s US Senate victory by Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson (who calls “Atlas Shrugged” his “foundational book”), Rand’s uncompromising defense of individualism has become a part of the tea-party mix.

Can the tea party deliver on its promise to cut back big government? Yes it can, but not unless its supporters awaken to the need for moral intransigency in pursuing individual liberty.

I’ll be interested to read the comments that are accumulating, to see how other interested observers view the movement’s future. And this just in: Yahoo News has picked up the article.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

America is the nation of individualism and capitalism, but these values are being eroded—day-by-day, bailout-by-bailout, billion-by-billion, takeover-by-takeover.

That is why hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Americans, myself included, will be protesting at Tea Parties this weekend. (I will be one of the speakers at the San Diego protest—if you’re in Southern California, please come and introduce yourself.)

Invoking the Boston Tea Party, one of the seminal events leading up to the American Revolution, we will be protesting against a government that seizes our wealth and our liberty in ways that King George could never have dreamed of.

But being against today’s government is not enough. What are we for—and why? A “free market”? Free from what, exactly? “Limited government”? Limited to what, exactly? When freedom is at stake, neither vagueness nor platitudes will do.

At the Ayn Rand Center, in the spirit of Atlas Shrugged, we stand for a separation of economy and state.

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In an article titled “What Can One Do?” (in Philosophy: Who Needs It), Ayn Rand said the following about what one person could do if he was concerned about the state of the world and wanted to improve it:

I will say the answer is “SPEAK” (provided you know what you are saying). A few suggestions: do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any scale open to you, large or small—to your friends, your associates, your professional organizations, or any legitimate public forum. You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the right time. You will see no immediate results—but it is of such activities that public opinion is made.

We’ve gathered together materials for those interested in speaking out at Tea Parties on July 4. Check out the Ayn Rand Center’s resources for speakers, attendees and advocates. Our web page dedicated to the Tea Parties has fliers that can be downloaded, sample speeches, and other articles. We’ve also created a number of videos that can be shared.

If you’re attending a Tea Party, and plan to use some of these resources, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave feedback at VFR to let us know about your event.

Here is a flyer I wrote for the upcoming Independence Day Tea Parties. Many of those attending today’s Tea Parties are fed up with the assault on freedom they read about in each morning’s paper–but they have no positive alternative to offer. If the Tea Parties are to have a lasting impact it will be because they go from being a grassroots outpouring of frustration to a movement that stands for limited government, individualism, and individual rights. This, I argue, is the value of Atlas Shrugged to Tea Party attendees: it provides a powerful and revolutionary defense of those ideals.

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Are you thinking of going to a Tea Party on July 4th? Is it because your tax dollars are being used to “stimulate” the economy and to bail out bad decision makers, and that seems unjust?  Because the money earned by responsible people is being confiscated and spent on rescuing those who are experiencing financial woes? Are you going because Washington’s policies seem unfair? Are you going for  justice – for yourself and for all hardworking Americans?

 We’ve all seen the bumper stickers: “Honk if you are paying your neighbor’s mortgage.” But is that all you are paying for? It’s time for a minivan full of new bumper stickers. Honk if you are paying for:

• Your neighbor’s children’s education.
• Your neighbor’s health care benefits.
• Your neighbor’s unemployment benefits.
• Your neighbor’s Social Security.
• Your neighbor’s electric bill.
• Your neighbor’s subsidized hybrid car. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I suggested that supporters of the upcoming tea parties need to base their protest on a consistent intellectual framework. The protests are right in spirit, but are lacking the clear and consistent principles necessary to sustain a real change in the culture. I referred readers to a talk by Onkar Ghate for an elaboration on what those guiding principles should be.

ARC has added a new page to our website with content that explores these issues further. Here you’ll find Dr. Ghate’s talk, along with articles, interviews and videos by ARC writers, essays and recordings by Ayn Rand, and free printable flyers to distribute at the protests. Please visit and spread the word.