Tea Party Communitarian By JONATHAN COPPAGE • November 19, 2013

There's a very good reason I've never identified with the Conservative Right. Many Conservatives support the ACL because we publish facts they use. They simply respect our quality of work. Many conservatives are put off because I don't identify myself as a Conservative or a Christian. They ask me to. I won't. If I did, I'd have a lot more readers, supporters, and a lot more promotions. If I were anything, even a Lesbian Democrat, I'd be a lot better off than being what I am. In order to appeal to my countrymen I must wear a label. But I don't identify myself as anything but anticommunitarian, and the American people have yet to become aware of what that means. 

Once I identified the thesis and the antithesis leading to the communitarian synthesis, I became aware of the dialectical roles each "side" plays in promoting the communitarian synthesis. After that I could never participate in any "side" that helps the communitarians. Then we showed with our antithesis how the evidence verifies the transformation of all societies into one big blob. Okay, so I never described it as a "blob," but maybe I should have! People know what that word means.

Today the communitarian synthesis (or blob) is manifesting in the Tea Party. I warned Americans this was going to happen in my Open Letter to Local Tea Party members in 2010. http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/2010/10/open-letter-to-all-members-of-local-tea.html

Either I have special powers of divination, God told me what to write, or I'm a damn good journalist. Whatever I am, I am the ONLY writer in the world who saw this coming and warned the public about it years before it happened. Now there's a "Tea Party Communitarian"! Oh yeah.

Tea Party Communitarian Can Sen. Mike Lee get libertarian populists to put family first? 

By JONATHAN COPPAGE • November 19, 2013

Article re-posted in its entirety from The American Conservative website http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/tea-party-communitarian/:

Mike Lee is an unlikely candidate for conservatism’s most promising policy mind. A Tea Party firebrand since he swept into office in 2010, Lee was the driving force behind efforts to defund Obamacare that led to a 16-day government shutdown this October. Yet the past year has also seen him reveal another side to his populist conservatism: a communitarian agenda for policy reform.

At the American Enterprise Institute in September, Lee set out a tax-reform proposal centered around a per child tax credit that would apply to income and payroll taxes alike. At the unveiling, Lee said: “Now, if you are like me—a conservative with a libertarian streak—you might at first raise an eyebrow at all this. My plan, you might say, may share some features of traditional conservative tax reform but it’s no flat tax. It’s no consumption tax,” two policies long favored by conservative for their economic efficiency or ostensible fairness.

“That’s right,” he continued. “It’s better.”

With the slightest hint of braggadocio that only a humble Utahn can muster, Lee broke with the economic individualism of the conservative establishment to prioritize instead the family, “the first and foremost institution of civil society.” There was a sound economic basis for this, to be sure. Lee drew attention to what he called the “Parent Tax Penalty” whereby parents doubly contribute to entitlement programs through their taxes and the expenses they incur raising future taxpayers. And he insisted, “Here, I am not speaking about the family as a moral or cultural institution, strictly as a social and economic one.” But that in itself is significant: the family, not just the individual, is what economics must be about.

“Conservatives sometimes get criticized for putting too much emphasis on the family in policy debates,” he acknowledged. But “the real problem may be that we don’t think about the family enough. For family is not just one of the major institutions through which people pursue happiness. Is the one upon which all the others depend.”

At the Heritage Foundation in April, Lee delivered a communitarian manifesto of sorts entitled “What Conservatives Are For.” He emphasized “that the true and proper end of political subsidiarity is social solidarity” and explained that his “vision of American freedom is of two separate but mutually reinforcing institutions: a free enterprise economy and a voluntary civil society.”

Lee’s proposals focus on relieving burdens on the institutions that strengthen society in their everyday practice. This outlook goes straight back to his Utah origins. “We’ve always been a state that has had strong institutions of civil society, very strong neighborhoods, very connected neighborhoods where people know each other,” the senator tells me. “Sometimes people are quick to assume that that just refers to people who are members of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but it’s not just that. There’s a very strong neighborhood dynamic in Utah that perhaps traces back to the way we were settled,” he explains.

“People had traveled great distances, sometimes thousands of miles to get there to what was initially a fairly desolate desert. The Salt Lake Valley was said to only have one or two trees when the first Mormon Pioneers arrived in 1847, and it required people to work together a lot to build these communities, to make the desert blossom like a rose. And that has become part of our culture, and it has thrived.”

{Niki ads this link here: Mormon Communitarianism- Distinct by Eschatology

 http://boaporg.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/mormon-communitarianism-distinct-by-eschatology/}

Communitarian concern for the social fabric and libertarian resistance to big-government interventions fit together naturally for the Utah senator. “Lee has been eager to show that social conservatism and concern for the family doesn’t speak a different language than his kind of constitutionalism and limited government-ism,” says Yuval Levin, editor of the policy quarterly National Affairs. Levin is encouraged by the direction he sees leaders like Lee taking.

“I think there’s been a tendency for a decade or more in conservatism to move away from communitarian talk to a much more individualist talk, and it’s very much in need of counterforce,” he says. “Conservatism needs to be a counterweight to radical individualism, not an enabler of it, and to me to see that being expressed again is really crucial.”

At AEI, Lee opened his proposal by speaking of “a new and unnatural stagnancy” that has trapped the poor and worn down the middle class. There are the beginnings here of a different way of talking about the economy, in contrast to the GOP’s old prosperity gospel for the upwardly mobile. Republicans a year ago proved all too ready to fan the flames of upper-class resentment with talk of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax. Lee rebukes that mentality, pointing out at AEI that “people who pay no income tax do pay federal taxes—payroll taxes, gas taxes, and various others,” and squarely declaring, “Working families are not free riders.” 

Lee rails upward instead, against the cronyism that big government and big business together have cultivated at the taxpayer’s expense. “At the top of our society, we find a political and economic elite that—having reached the highest rungs—has pulled up the ladder behind itself, denying others the chance even to climb,” he warned at AEI. At Heritage, he went so far as to say, “The first step in a true conservative reform agenda must be to end this kind of preferential policymaking. Beyond simply being the right thing to do, it is a prerequisite for earning the moral authority and political credibility to do anything else.” How, he asked, could working families take seriously a conservatism that props up and subsidizes big banks and corporate agricultural interests?

For a GOP long seen as the party of entrenched financial interests, populist credibility must be won back, and a deregulation agenda alone won’t cut it. This is where Lee’s rugged communitarianism is especially vital to his cause. In his Heritage speech, he described the conservative vision as “not an Ayn Rand novel. It’s a Norman Rockwell painting, or a Frank Capra movie: a society of ‘plain, ordinary kindness, and a little looking out for the other fellow, too’. ”

He continued,

In the last few years, we conservatives seem to have abandoned words like ‘together,’ ‘compassion,’ and ‘community’ as if their only possible meanings were as a secret code for statism. This is a mistake. Collective action doesn’t only—or even usually—mean government action. Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of community to the left, when it is the vitality of our communities upon which our entire philosophy depends.

Lee’s understanding of civil society redirects what often seems like a pure populist backlash—a mere reaction—to finding constructive ways in which limited-government constitutionalists can act on James Madison’s notion that government is for “the happiness of the people” and Abraham Lincoln’s idea that it ought “to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all.”

But can Lee sell his communitarian message to his fellow constitutionalists? Levin is hopeful: “He has a shot because to a certain extent he’s filling a vacuum, and that means he really has an opportunity to shape the arena the way he wants to.”

As Lee himself said at AEI: “For a political party too often seen as out of touch, aligned with the rich, indifferent to the less fortunate, and uninterested in solving the problems of working families, Republicans could not ask for a more worthy cause around which to build a new conservative reform agenda.”

Jonathan Coppage is associate editor of The American Conservative.

This article was reposted in numerous places around the USA:

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x915445929/Gerson-The-communitarian-tea-partier?rssfeed=true

http://www.capjournal.com/opinions/columnist/the-communitarian-mike-lee/article_76f2773c-51a7-11e3-b8da-0019bb2963f4.html

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2013/11/19/how-mike-lee-is-changing-the-republican-party-n1749558

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865590873/Utah-Sen-Mike-Lee-emerges-as-a-communitarian.html

Big Mother's Vague Big Society has a Big Bad Bank

Huge thanks to Darren for sending us the link to Alan Watt's July 15 radio show about communitarianism and where I found this link! Cameron sure didn't waste any time, did he? Wow. How relevant does this make my article in the UK Column? (Thanks to Lark for sending the link!)

Nice to see the UK Telegraph cites a poll that backs up my main concern and explains my contempt for the whole cultural makeover these boys have planned. I think their one out of three is stretching it, but we all agree it's an undeniable fact that 2 out of 3 people still do not know anything about how far our social evolution has progressed. How many people can grasp the MERGER of libertarianism and communism? How many people are in the "club?"

David Cameron launches his Big Society

EXCERPT with emphasis added:

During the election campaign, Mr Cameron faced accusations, including from senior figures from within his own party, that the Big Society concept was too vague and intangible to attract voters. Polls showed that two out of three voters had not even heard of it.

But Mr Cameron hopes that putting flesh on the bones of his vision will persuade critics that it can be shared by millions of ordinary Britons who care about their community and are tired of having so many aspects of their life dictated from the centre.

He will say: “The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace, don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.

“We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.”

The four pioneer communities will be helped by dedicated civil servants who will give expert advice if they encounter legal problems or bureaucratic obstacles.

Officials will also identify local residents with a particular aptitude for taking part in Big Society projects – they will then receive training to become community organisers, motivating their neighbours to take part in action schemes.

They will also be able to draw on the Big Society Bank, which, Mr Cameron promised, would use “every penny of dormant bank and building society account money” to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7897445/David-Cameron-launches-his-Big-Society.html

Now England has a Community Revenue Sharing Program just like Alaska and Kenny Lake! What a coinkydink. I wonder if the same "club" in Britain will be the "expert motivators" as the oh so WISE ones in our little enlightened neighborhood.

Alan Watt is a poet too! I love this bit, and I haven't even heard it yet! Hoping for a good enough connection to download it.

Alan Watt "Cutting Through The Matrix" LIVE on RBN:

New World Order -- Communitarianism:
Hundreds of Years in the Making,
Now Your Wealth They're Taking:

"Communitarianism, We're Told's the Plan We're On,
Individual Liberty and Choice to be Dead and Gone,
It's All Under the Guise of Sustainable Living,
The U.N.'s the Boss, So Get Used to Giving,
Taxed till You're Destitute, You Poor Old Soul,
To Build Factories in China, Guzzling Up Coal,
To India too, We Redistribute Our Wealth,
As We're Told to Go Vegan, Good for the Health,
Yet We Must Cut Back, Too Much Consumption,
We Should Nip this in Bud, If We've the Gumption,
Are We so Stupid We'll Pay Taxes for Breathing?
We've Already Lost Homes, the Banks are Seizing,
Stop the Madness Because it Grows, You See,
Carbon, Energy, Food Taxes, it'll Endless Be,
Masters, Minions Worked Up to Age Aquarian,
For "Big Idea," New Governance, Communitarian"
***Dialogue Copyrighted Alan Watt - July 15, 2010 (Exempting Music, Literary Quotes, and Callers' Comments)

***LISTEN / DOWNLOAD [about 10.6MB in size]


Topics of show covered in following links:

Ontario Eco-Fee (Tax) is Illegal

Enviro fees by Product Stewardship

The "Who Are We" of Above

"Our" Common Community--Implementation of Communitarianism in US and Britain

One of the Communitarian Sites--"The Big Society"

UN Gives Billions of Pounds of "Rich" Countries' Money to Energy Giants Companies to Build

Coal Fired Power Plants in China and India

Britian's culture of irresponsibility

I'll be on the Secret Truth radio show at 4:20 pm AK time today. Hope you can join us. Here's a nice explanation of Conservative Communitarianism in Great Britian, David Cameron says his DNA is made up of: "family, community, country." What does he mean by "community," I wonder. Can he possibly mean the global communitarian definition of community? My dad ended every toast with "God, Country and the 82nd Airborne!" I knew what that meant.

Made another youtube video, this one's crude, rude and possibly even lewd. Nordica is very suprised I put it up. She thinks she knows me. It's playing some boring piano music instead of what I chose from their list of free music, so I changed it again and found a recording of Sarah Vaugn singing "somewhere over the rainbow"! And like the etzioni video, this one has no title and no description yet. hmmm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgpY0glFPI
From Peter Myer's elist:

(1) David Cameron promises to tear down Labour's Big Brother government

David Cameron promises to 'tear down big government'

David Cameron used his keynote speech at the Conservative Conference to make a powerful personal appeal to the public to trust him to repair Britain by tearing down Labour's "big government".

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor at the Conservative Party Conference
Published: 8:30AM BST 09 Oct 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/6279125/David-Cameron-promises-to-tear-down-big-government.html

In a deeply personal speech, Mr Cameron returned repeatedly to what he described as 'my DNA: family, community, country' Photo: REUTERS

Declaring himself ready to be prime minister, the Conservative leader called on voters to place their faith in his judgment to put the country "back on her feet".

In a wide-ranging critique of Labour's 12 years in power, Mr Cameron repeatedly pledged to cut government bureaucracy and return "power to the people". The economy, society and political life had been left "broken" by more than a decade of Labour rule, he said, as he promised to tackle Britain's "culture of irresponsibility". Most strikingly, Mr Cameron, the son of a stockbroker, attempted to position the Conservatives as the defenders of the country's poor and disadvantaged.

In an angry attack on Labour's record on poverty that won him a standing ovation, he said of Gordon Brown's administration: "Don't you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern Conservative Party, to fight for the poorest who you have let down."

"Family, community and country", he said, lay at the heart of his beliefs.

In stark contrast to Mr Brown, who littered his conference speech last week with policy announcements, Mr Cameron made no new manifesto pledges during his hour-long address, his last to the party before the general election. Instead, he set out a broader vision, urging voters to rate the party leaders on their judgment ahead of their policies.

"It's your character, your temperament and your judgment that in the end count so much more than your policies and your manifesto," he said. "If we cut big government back. If we move society forward and if we rebuild responsibility, then we can put Britain back on her feet. None of this will be easy. We will be tested. I will be tested. I'm ready for that, and so, I believe, are the British people.

"I know that today there aren't many reasons to be cheerful. But there are reasons to believe. Yes, it will be a steep climb. But the view from the summit will be worth it."

The Tory leader said that big government had led to "the steady erosion of responsibility" and left Britain with a "dark side" of poverty, crime, addiction, failing schools, sink estates and broken homes. He would lead Britain "in a completely different direction".

He vowed to "tear down Labour's bureaucracy, ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense".

"This is my DNA: family, community, country. These are the things I care about. They are what made me," he said. "We will reward those who take responsibility, and care for those who can't."

Reserving his fiercest criticism for Labour's record on poverty, he said: "Labour still have the arrogance to think that they are the ones who will fight poverty and deprivation. When we announced our plan to Get Britain Working you know what Labour called it? 'Callous'.

"Excuse me? Who made the poorest poorer? Who left youth unemployment higher? Who made inequality greater? No, not the wicked Tories, you, Labour: you're the ones that did this to our society." His speech attempted to bring some optimism to the conference after the bleak economic picture painted on Tuesday by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor.

"What I want to talk about is how good things will be," said Mr Cameron.

But he warned his supporters and voters that the immediate future would be grim. "I have no illusions," he said. "If we win this election, it is going to be tough. There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful.

"We will need to confront Britain's culture of irresponsibility and that will be hard to take for many people."

In a highly personal passage of the speech, Mr Cameron spoke movingly about the death of his disabled son, Ivan, in February and the doubts he had experienced afterwards. He said: "When such a big part of your life suddenly ends, nothing else – nothing outside – matters. It's like the world has stopped turning and the clocks have stopped ticking.

"And as they slowly start again, weeks later, you ask yourself all over again: do I really want to do this?"

Mr Cameron then paid tribute to his wife, Samantha, who sat in the front row of the packed Manchester Central arena.

"I know what sustains me the most. She is sitting right there and I'm incredibly proud to call her my wife," he said.

Mr Cameron paid tribute to the Armed Forces and promised to equip them properly; he pledged to defend and reform the NHS and also to sweep away the "surveillance state", including ID cards; and he talked of his determination to make sure education funding goes directly to head teachers rather than quangos.

Turning to The Daily Telegraph's disclosures on MPs' expenses, he said: "We are just starting the job of building the new politics we need. Because the anger over expenses reflected something deeper."