The tea party is probably only as dirty as the Koch's money. Remove that and you've got a bunch of people who basically believe in the goodness of individuals. That isn't terribly dirty IMO.
What is controversial is the Kochs' tactic of backing republican politicians who are themselves pro-war and opposed to personal liberty (along side candidates who oppose wars and support personal liberty, of course): sometimes the "lesser" of two evils is still... evil; even worse, one may be mistaken about what is lesser. This wasn't always this way: Kochs once supported the Libertarian Party and represented its more liberal (in the conventional sense) wing, oddly enough in opposition to its more radical wing led by Ron Paul.
None of this is a defense of libertarian ideas per-se, my own views have evolved on this. Of course that's besides the point of TFA: civil liberties are a core point of classical liberalism, the foundation conservatism, liberalism, and libertarians; this isn't a matter of arguing whether or not healthcare should be socialized (or not), one would hope Rand Paul would be speaking for the majority of senate (across both parties) and not as a maverick.
[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/final-proof-the-te...
Maybe not dirty, but terribly naive. Not in the sense that I think people are inherently evil, but I do believe they are inherently greedy (naturally as greed serves an important evolutionary function as long as we live in a society with scarcity) in a way that makes them perfectly willing to bend and break the rules to increase their personal wealth and power as long as they don't get punished for it and nobody that they have to actually see (and thus empathize with) gets hurt by their greed (though some have such advanced systems of self-denial that even this bit is negotiable).
This is why unregulated capitalism is just as flawed as pure socialism for now, current humans can't be trusted to live in any system without external checks and balances (and even with those the best we can hope for is that the system mostly works for most people).
Removing corporate taxes, and in the same vein reducing both the rights of corporations to that of "non-living entities" (no freedom of speech, etc), as well as driving out tax shelters and loopholes in favor of encouraging either reinvestment/growth or paying dividends which are taxed...
Most libertarians I've known are not in favor of crony corporatism, which is very different from allowing or encouraging free markets to work.
This is an extremely generous characterization and one that I do not feel is borne out by the vigorous "fuck you, I've got mine" platform that's dressed up as a defense of personal liberty. American conservatism had degenerated to this point before the Tea Party, but rarely was it stated so barefacedly.
The liberties of poverty--say, to die rather than impoverish your family when you get cancer, or to doom another generation to subsistence due to the factors in which they are raised--are no liberty at all. And, either through malicious advocacy or through desired inaction, the Tea Party was about that from day one. I was there. (I look rather poorly on historical hagiography, regardless of who the halo's being painted onto.)
As opposed to having the government decide for you, without actually changing the possible alternatives?
Let's have a quick review of the policies the US government has in place to "help the poor" -- starting with subsidizing mortgage interest. Not new housing construction, borrowing money so people can spend more on housing. Which therefore bids up the cost of housing for anyone who hasn't yet or never will save enough for a down payment. On top of that, it's structured so that people in higher tax brackets or who own more expensive property get more subsidy.
Since you now can't afford housing, the government will provide subsidized housing projects with no hot water but plenty of drug dealers.
You might want out of these conditions and start working a second job in order to save up a down payment for your own property. But the added income from your second job disqualifies you from the government subsidies, so running twice as fast only keeps you in the same place.
At some point a working class person starts to wonder if they wouldn't be better off if the government would stop "helping" them so much.
Donated money to charity? Republicans 54%, Democrats 45% Volunteered for a cause? Republicans 33%, Democrates 24% [1]
"...households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals" [2]
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/giving-back-_n_3781... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=...
Why take the churches out? Because you're implying that donating to a "charity" means they're doing good for their local community. Churches seldom do much good compared to dedicated social benefit organizations.
It would be more convincing if you backed that claim up with evidence.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/27/in-2013-the-clinton-foun...
I honestly have no idea of their affiliation, I can only assume this website is right-wing because of the story, but there are at least links to a W2, which seems impartial enough.
I lost faith in non-pro's a while ago because of stories like the above. The idea is sound, the reality seems shaky at best.
But look around your city, look at the housing or domestic violence nonprofits, look at the ones that retrain ex-felons or offer services to help them integrate, and on and on and on.
Find churches that do a tenth of that kind of work. In my city, a medium-sized American city, I can think of a very few church-run social benefit organizations, but the city is thick with nonprofits that help the worst-off in society in a variety of ways.
More than a few have told me that the majority of their time is met filing for grants, doing "shady" book-keeping and fulfilling whatever minimum requirements needed to earn said grants. The shady book-keeping has caused more than a few to leave.
No, of course not all non-pros are that way. But, comparing church to a non-pro seems as useful as comparing the NFL to a non-pro, which until this year, the NFL was a non-profit. [0]
This was why I was curious if you had data to back up your claim. I am far from a church apologist. Very far from it, but in my N=1 anecdotal experience, the only difference between church and a non-religious non-pro, is the religion.
Not at all an attack towards you, I was hopeful you had data to back up your claim. I am still hopeful. I do not like churches.
[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/why-the-...
I don't think the data set exists that says "Nonprofits are/are not tax-shelter scams that spend most of their time doing shady bookkeeping".
I don't know if there's a data set that breaks down how many people get helped by nonprofits, either, because the stuff they do takes on so many different forms (and how would you quantify the work, say, an environmental nonprofit does in terms of human benefit?).
I do know that, if you were curious, there is a very far-reaching community of nonprofit professionals online, and they'd do a much better job than me explaining the social-benefit-type of work their employers do.
I'll ask around tomorrow, too (I have a bunch of nonprofit-employed friends, who work in programs and not administration). I'll return to this thread if I get anything good to share.
(And yes, there's definitely corruption in the nonprofit world, I won't argue with that, my beef is with churches that do almost nothing for the community and still enjoy the tax-exempt status and that "we're a charity, ergo we're good for the world" sentiment.)