Tea Party, Meet Religious Right. Everybody Meet Ayn Rand.

[Joanne98]

LAS VEGAS, NEV. — In two major speeches and in the scuttlebutt of break-out sessions, Tea Party movement activists yesterday witnessed a subtle melding of their ideology with the sensibilities of the religious right and the cold capitalism of libertarian she-ro Ayn Rand. Along the way, more nakedly than before, presenters spoke of their clear-eyed plan to take over the Republican Party from within.

There’s a ridiculous idea circulating among some progressives that supporters of the Tea Party movement don’t give a hoot about the sexual and reproductive issues that move adherents of the religious right. If today’s RightOnline conference, a Tea Party gathering taking place in Las Vegas, is any indication, that calculus is based on a faulty abacus.

The Tea Partiers here heard today from two of their movement’s leading lights: Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who both wove strands of religious-right dogma or watchwords into their speeches.

The steely-eyed Pence is a big favorite among the Tea Party crowd, and is said to have his eye on the presidency. In the meantime, he occupies the number three position in the House Republican leadership: he chairs the House Republican Conference.

In a mid-day speech that rested primarily on the purported horrors of deficit spending, Pence illustrated his contention that today’s deficit spending is theft of the dollars of the adults of tomorrow, Pence used an anecdote from his own family life.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/24/tea-party-meet-religious-right-everybody-meet-ayn-rand/

The fundies have been slowly taking over the teaparty. I think we should focus on this.

[dkf]

1. Where was Ayn Rand on abortion?

I really don't understand how any libertarian can be for forcing a woman to do what they want.

[rAVES]

2. link

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5105

[Recursion]

6. Ayn Rand was loudly and obnoxiously atheistic

Pretty much everything she did, she did loudly and obnoxiously.

[Canuckistanian]

3. The ultimate irony is that Rand was an atheist

She would have rejected the religious right with as much vitriol as she did for community organizations and government regulation.

And she would CERTAINLY have been against "The Family", of which Mike Pence (R-Mars) is a card-carrying member.

[SkyDaddy7]

4. Exactly!

That is just another example of how ignorant and loony the Tea Baggers are!

[TheWraith]

7. Not to mention that she was all for complete sexual freedom, too.

She was an insane person, but at least she wasn't an utter hypocrite.

[dkf]

8. Hey in that case she makes more sense than they do.

They take her big government arguments and twist it with the completely incompatible government control over a woman's body. Crazy illogical tea baggers.

[Alcibiades]

5. The fundamentalists are not"taking over" the tea party movt

They were there from day one. At a counterprotest to a teabagger protest, last summer, I noticed the many of the same homeschool fundamentalist homelander Christians you see at anti-abortion protests, providing the event management and many of the bodies. And that was LAST summer.

The stuff about them being some sort of coalition of independents, Democrats and Republicans has been simply made up, and the media have not called them on it. If you look at who the activists are, you find the same odd mix you find at any other conservative political event. No matter what their motivations, though they are the same people. Though the fundies have given the anti-tax people the mike for the tea party stuff, they have been there from day one. Someone at the top made the decision that they should not be too visible, but when they show up in the clothes their moms have sewn, they stick out like a sore thumb.

Sort of like the Spartacist League. Any kind of major leftist political event in D.C., they all show up.

[4dsc]

9. Tea Party=GOP=Republicans

There is no tea party. Come on folks.

[Alcibiades]

10. Yep

It's a rebranding.