That's obvious from your comments. Those who refer to you as one are revealing something about themselves, not you.

Anyway, I find the Tea Party movement fascinating to the extent that it reveals some of the schisms, or perhaps contradictions, in the American right. That the same crowd of people could cheer for both Sarah Palin and Ron Paul is... bizarre. "Limited government" is increasingly a sort of Rohrshach blot that means whatever the credulous listener wants it to mean. I went through a similar experience on the left during the Bush years, assuming (naively, in retrospect) that other people meant the same thing I did by phrases like "civil liberties". Obviously in the Obama era this has been revealed not to be the case.

You know what the problem is with you conservatives, Bird Dog? Do you want to hear it?

You won. Reagan won. The media & the Beltway establishment have long since bought into the fundamental principles of the Reagan Revolution: limited government; wariness of unintended consequences & perverse incentives; pro-capital approach to innovation & allocation; low taxes; muscular foreign policy but collaboration with ex-enemies. Every one of those precepts has been incorporated as scripture by the federal government at all levels. Reagan presided over the death of much of the Great Society (except of course for its largest & most expensive safety nets), but philosophically the model of social reengineering by government fiat is dead. We no longer believe that "tax these people and give some cruddy benefits to these other people" is a viable way to address the public good. You won.

Granted, and obviously, I'm only speaking of an ideological victory. The problems of our government, economy, & regulatory system are obviously badly broken right now, partly as a result of the attempt to impose new Reaganite regulatory schemes over the hideous network of earmarks & kickbacks that is the reality of current federal budgeting. There's a *lot* of work for fiscal conservatives these days.

But where the hell are they all? Answer: they're on the back pages of boring newspapers nobody reads. Instead, the nominally "conservative" party, and its even further right wing offshoots, has discovered that it has no real causes left, and has gone full bore nutbar trying to out Reagan Reagan. If a little conservative medicine is good for the country, what happens if we drink the whole damn bottle?

The GOP & the Tea Party are trying to fight a war they've already won, and they're running way way out to the lunatic right in order to appeal as conservative enough. The end of that road is irrelevance.

Hell, the Democrats right now are closer to Reagan (perhaps slightly to his right on many issues) than the Republicans. But they could sure use a hand, someone to remind them to listen to their better angels.

Institute a 15% VAT (with perhaps some exemptions for food and rent below a certain threshhold.)

Have this replace the payroll tax.

If you make less than around $50K, you don't even have to file taxes. What you pay in VAT will take care of you.

Then 2 brackets... maybe 15% on income from $50-250K, and 25% on income from $250K upwards. And way less exemptions... ditch the mortgage interest, for one.

Simple, promotes saving and investment, far more efficient than the current regime, a bit more progressive, and -- this is a wild guess -- probably revenue-neutral or a bit better.

1. Protect the Constitution. First, since you can't amend the Constitution through legislation, the concept is foolish. The better effort is to make Congress and the Executive subject to "the Law" (no carve-outs) through a Constitutional Amendment.

2. With respect to "cap and trade", all you have to do is see how it is working out in Europe.

3. The mess in California has little to do with tax increases but alot to do with everything else. If you want to constrain the growth of government, constrain the growth of government, er limit its parameters.

4. If I remember correctly, the number of "tax cheats" (and related passes on cheating) was some what staggering. Take a hatchet to the "tax code" not a scapel.

5. Elect congressional critters, who prefer their home states to D.C.

6. See #5.

7. Since none to the objectives set forth by the Obama Admin have been met with the current legislation, hit the "reset" button.

8. Coal works for me, especially western coal, fine with the rest.

9. "Stop the Pork", what is "pork"?

10. See #5.

I would take two actions, first repeal the XVII Amendment and pass a constitutional amendment which makes the Congress and the Executive subject to all the laws of the land.

And the particulars are all poorly thought-out or outright stupid, then it's safe to say that the movement has no point except anger.

Indeed, as I've mentioned elsewhere, a lot of Tea Partiers seem willfully unaware of a whole lot of basic facts. You have people who angry about layabouts on welfare who have a genuinely hard time accepting all of the particulars of the 1996 Welfare Reform, for example. Ditto with people who refuse to believe that BHO has not simply ported the NHS or Canadian Medicare into the U.S. And there's an *incredible* amount of cognitive dissonance with BHO's commitment to beating the Taliban and killing terrorists in Waziristan.

What you have are people who seem to almost be addicted to anger and outrage. I honestly can't see any other reason for what amounts to willful ignorance.

Have you ever thought about just biting the bullet and becoming a conservative Democrat?

Seriously.

And thanks for the succinct nutshell analysis of the fundamental problem with the "Tea Party" "movement":

Really, who could seriously be "against" such principles? I'll sign on to those, gladly. But as usual in American politics, once one moves away from the generalities (might as well be "Mom, apple pie and baseball"), and into the specifics of what actual policies/programs/priorities the government should/shouldn't enact, one isn't left with a lot of popular stuff. Other, of course, than the usual "No Taxes" nonsense; but that's pretty much a given for any "populist" movement in this country.

you may be dropping the R from RINO soon because I don't see any way that this doesn't become the bulk of the GOP platform in future elections. They already have tax cuts as the single non-negotiable characteristic defining "Republican" (you may disagree but I challenge you to find a single Republican who has called for tax increases and not suffered severely for it.)

Like I've said before, the tea partiers seem to be saying "cut everything in government except for the things that directly affect me". They'll never be content because their hot button issues add up to a few percent of the budget.

the phrase "government-run health care" is brainless bumper sticker talk.

Government run healthcare would be the Veterans Administration hospitals. Are the Tea Partiers really against the VA?

Somehow, I don't think so....

(good diary, btw -apologies for not having something more substantive to say.)