How serious are the differences between anarchists and tea party people in the US?

Question

I hear anti-government, anti-new world order sentiment coming from both sides and I want to hear folks explain what makes anarchism different from the attitudes of tea party people.

Comments

you might be interested in this question...

http://anarchy101.org/119/in-what-way-do-anarchists-relate-to-libertarians-on-the-right

also, tags that are more than one word should have dashes between the words (unless you want a tag of "of"?).

Answer 1

I agree that you should follow the link that dot posted, however here are my few cents.

While the Tea Partiers may share a few catch phrases and vague sentiments with anarchists, I feel that that is about all they share. This "new right" that has popped up is simply a more public, more popular face to the tax-evading, Christian/Christian Identity, militia men that have gained and lost support on and off for a few decades now.

While we may appear to share a few common enemies, when you scratch under the surface we don't. The tea partiers aren't opposed to capitalism - in fact most idolize it as the answer to the problems of the government today; they aren't opposed to religion - most are crazy fundamentalist Christian; they aren't opposed to racism - far too many are bigotted as fuck; they aren't opposed to sexism and patriarchy - most are anti-choice, and once again, crazy Christian.  

And just look at a Tea Party protest - it's a sea of partiotism. American flags in every hand, a "USA: freedom ain't free" t-shirt on every child. Many of their anti-government feelings come from a place of uber-patriotism (the patriotism of "protecting our constitution from all enemies - foreign and domestic"), and those that aren't rockin' the USA-uber-alles get-up are often far more concerning. They tend to be the ones most antisemitic - believing that the only real problem of the US government is that it controlled by a conspiracy of wealthy Jewish people. I hope that I need not delve into why anti-semitism and pro-constitutionism are not anarchist.

And these are just the most glaring incompatibilities. All  in all we share so few commonalities that it seems tiring to drag through the whole laundry list of differences.

Comments

Many of the "tea party people" still support so-called "limited 'government,'" (a completely illogical contradiction), and therefore are not anarchists, but, theyre surely closer to being anarchists than a bunch of communists, "democratic socialists," etc. Anarchy and Libertarianism are the same thing. The only "libertarian" position, is anarchy, statelessness, no rulers...and that logically entails (by extension of my natural rights) my right to property and free trade/free market economics (of course, i realize many of you still probably think a "capitalist" RULES you, but, they don't. maybe we'll get into that later...).. in supporting "limited 'govt,'" a so-called "libertarian" is not actually a libertarian, theyre still a statist and therefore still a socialist. the only difference between the "limited govt" people and the "democrats" is in rhetoric.. they just bicker over WHEN/WHY the "govt' should be able to demand your money for central programs 50%+1 of "the people" voted for /decided they wanted/declared "law"...and initiate violence against you/put you in a cage/kick you off the commune if you don't pay. if "libertarianism" is not synonymous with anarchy, then it has nothing to do with liberty.

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I do not consider myself a Leftist, but...all forms of anarchism historically, from the anarcho-commies to the free market mutualists, have advocated at least the central negative goal of socialism: the abolition of profit, interest, rent, and compulsory wage labor. Socialism originally did not equal statism but rather collective self-organization by the workers. You can have statist and libertarian forms of socialism (supposedly).

"Self-ownership" as libertarians call it does not automatically lead to a right to property because many different notions of legitimate property exist: access by need (communism), access by community (communitarianism), workplace ownership (syndicalism), ownership by homesteading and use (mutualism), ownership by possession (egoism), non-ownership (green?). None of them have any fondness toward putting a fence around food to let it spoil, nor  owning humans, nor class-based ownership of capital. We have specific thoughts that qualify "property", most of us differentiating between private property versus personal possessions, commodities versus belongings, that used passively to accumulate wealth and that used actively for subsistence.

Anarchists distrust monopoly, and have critiqued the elements of monopoly inherent to various forms of property (e.g. one group owns all the productive tools of society). You cannot just say anarchists believe in a natural right to property; natural rights are social fictions! Most of us have no solid position in the deontological versus consequentialist justification arguments anyway.

Also, Tea Partiers I've talked to do not believe in "limited government", they believe in small government for the white middle class patriot man, and big government for everyone else (via militarized borders, war on terror, domestic spying, colonialism, war on crime, war on drugs, etc).

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redblood blackflag - as i noted in another thread - this site does not recognize @cap as anarchy; i am making all your answers into comments. the software shows that as editing.

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If you dont recognize "ancap" as anarchy, then youre not an anarchist. lol, sorry i wasted my time on this page and "made you have to work" at editing all my answers. I know, I know, work sucks. lmfao.

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Maybe you should have READ the answers bro.. and actually used your brain. .. most especially the example i gave about the two people creating farms in the forest. YOURE the authoritarian man. you lay claim to all property in the WORLD then say you dont believe in rulers. You aim to tell every person what they can/cant trade for and say you dont believe in masters. An "anarcho" communists comes upon an anarchist who homesteaded in the forest and says "you can't own this land! nobody owns it! and everybody owns it!"  - an "anarcho" communist says "excluding people from the use of things is an authoritarian act, so you can't own any private property" - get a grip dude! you're a communist!