CNN ran a story with the headline What is the Tea Party Movement. Naturally I wanted to know more so I clicked on the headline. In typical CNN style I was taken to a series of images with little captions that did nothing to explain what the hell the Tea Party Movement is. One of the images caught my eye because it showed a group of middle aged white guys who looked like my uncle’s hunting buddies and their sons sitting around the base of the Washington monument. They held flags of various shapes and sizes and one sign with the words “Don’t Tread On Me” with the image of a coiled rattlesnake. This has long been the slogan and image of the Libertarian Party. Libertarians, carrying posters and flying flags of a coiled rattlesnake, sometimes wonder why other people don’t take them seriously. Gee, I wonder why? 
The slogan and image are wrong! The Libertarian movement in the beginning was not about “don’t tread on me,” it was about “don’t tread on OTHERS.” Libertarianism was an outward political philosophy that stood firmly behind the idea that rights ended when they imposed on someone else.
But todays Libertarians have jumped into bed with the Right Wing Republicans, a group that has caused as much harm, if not more harm, to American liberties as the Democrats. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats are advocating smaller government and more freedom, they merely bicker about controls and which to enact. For example, the Republicans want smaller government, yet they want the government to regulate marriage. That is a contradictory premise held by a group that the Libertarians have sided with. (I think the beginnings of my disassociation with the Libertarian Party was when I read an article in Reason magazine that reported not all Libertarians were in support of same-sex marriage and that some even opposed it for religious reasons.)
For many years I identified as a Libertarian and wasn’t afraid to say it. But over the last two years I’ve found myself moving away from the party and its ideas. I have to clarify that I am NOT a Republican nor am I a Democrat. (I now identify as a Classical Liberal, which is the politics of Thomas Jefferson.)
I attended a Tea Party last spring at the Capitol building in Phoenix and regretted going the moment I saw the big, fat biker chick and her bald husband with a goatee, both clomping down the street in boots and wrapped in leather from head to toe carrying a sign that said “We are a CHRISTIAN nation.” As an out and proud gay atheist (or “gatheist” as I sometimes say) I was terrified and wondered why the hell I had gone to the Tea Party.
I felt foolish for going because I really thought there would be people there standing for liberty and freedom for all. Instead, the speakers only talked about how evil Obama was, Jesus, and “true American values.” (Which they of course did not define.)
Libertarians have purposely joined with this “Party of No” as they’ve been called and I no longer share their political values. Perhaps when they get rid of the coiled rattlesnake and remember the true roots of freedom and liberty, I’ll support them again. Until then, I’m on my own.
(The picture of the flag came from http://www.Gadsden.info/)















