No, serious question. The Tea Party is apparently the most vigorous political movement of the moment – the TP’s take on anything not directly addressed in its various platform statements, such as the Contract from America, is therefore an important question.
The TP purports to be, and no doubt in part is, a libertarian movement – that is, a small-l, economic-libertarian, anti-tax, deficit-hawk, anti-big-federal-government movement. Now, for reasons I’m sure I need not explain here, large-L Libertarians, in addition to agreeing with the TPers on all these points, presumably would be rated Most Likely to Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund. OTOH, the Tea Party also seems to have a definite – and likely predominant – social-religious-paleoconservative element. While the latter in turn contains a definite element hostile to the whole GWOT and the big federal military establishment (represented by Pat Buchanan, The American Conservative magazine, and the America First Party), it seems to be, for the most part, traditionally patriotic and hawkish and my-country-right-or-wrong. So, what is the proper TP line on Wikileaks and Assange? What’s more important to them – big-federal-government transparency, or supporting our troops? Or is this issue a coalition-splitter?
As far as I can tell, opinions are all over the map on this one. The ‘security hawk’ tea partiers are opposed because they think it weakens America’s security. The libertarian tea partiers are cautiously approving, or at least agnostic.
I don’t think the Wikileaks issue is particularly partisan, actually. Some of the information damages Obama. Some damages Bush. Some of it sheds light on actual government incompetence, while other info seems to be either harmless or just embarrassing.
Some people on the right are actually cheering this, because they say that the revelations about the ‘back channel’ diplomacy prove that they are right about the threat Iran poses, that they are right about the ‘axis of evil’ (connections between Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc).
Another angle on this is that the government agency that looks the worst in all this is the State Department, and the right has generally been hostile to the State Department. So I don’t think you’re going to find consensus on the right any more than you’ll find consensus on the left.
The thing that surprised me about it is just how sloppy the government has been. Not only with security (how did a PFC have access to all this?), but with lax controls over content. Some of the comments in those cables should never have been made. The first rule of written communications is that you should assume that everything you say will eventually be made public. Some of those cables look like they were written by tweens who were just dumped by their first crush. Very unprofessional.
It appears that Ron Paul has stated his support for the leaks, but Sarah Palin pretty much wants Assange dead.
I’m betting more Tea Partiers would align themselves with Palin on this issue, seeing as how support for the leaks seems to be pretty much a fringeposition in the United States.
Anything(e.g. missile guidance systems, advanced radar, etc) that gives a direct military advantage to our enemies, e.g. the Soviet or Red Chinese military, would be bad, and would probably be considered as treason.
OTOH, leaking secret data about the UFO files and the alien spacecraft that crashed in Roswell New Mexico would be welcomed and cheered!!!
I think Sarah Palin would love to see evidence of corruption in government exposed.
Originally Posted by Susanann
I think Sarah Palin would love to see evidence of corruption in government exposed.
That is not true. Obviously, you dont know her record.
When Sarah Palin was in Alaska politics, she exposed BOTH!!! democrats and republicans for their corruption, kicked them out of office, nixed their backroom illegal or corrupt secret payoffs, nulled the shady contracts that hurt Alaskans, and sent them packing or to jail. Sarah Palin turned Alaskan politics upside down and got rid of the rich old boys who were holding back Alaska.
That is a major reason why the Republican establishment does not like her, nor trust her, bc Sarah will go after ANYBODY!!! who is corrupt.
Actually, I’m quite familiar with her record. And in just about six weeks time, her national career of spouting homespun, nonsensical divisive rhetoric (as measured from the time she was selected as a VP candidate) will exceed her total time in the governor’s office, so I’m quite confident she has developed a pattern of being a caricature of rabidly partisan mama bear.
The main reason the Republican establishment doesn’t like her is because she doesn’t display a grasp of any major national or international issue beyond “OMG Assange is a traitor!!” or calling for his assassination.
She, and her Twitter feed, are no more worth taking seriously than some of the highly opinionated, lightly informed posters here who may stake out their extreme positions on this board through barely-comprehensible rants in the BBQ Pit.
I would think Libertarians would love Wikileaks. The Tea Baggers are not all Libertarians, but I would think they are well represented in the membership.
Glenn Beck: Assange may be man of the millennium. Comes out fully in support of Wikileaks (I wonder if his support would have been quite as strong with a Republican in the White House, though?)
First of all, what on Earth makes you think that the people who selected her as a VP candidate don’t like her? Second, could you give us a few cites for Sarah Palin going after Sarah Palin?
I would say the majority of the Tea Party folks I know personally are all for the leaks…most of them believe that the government should have zero secrets and that the people should essentially know everything. Complete transparency. Of course, most of the TP folks I know believe the government should simply be a small care taker organization, and that we should have direct democracy, instead of representational democracy.
I do know a few TPers who think the leaks were criminal and that Assange should be shot for ‘treason’, but they definitely seem to be in a minority, at least based on my own anecdotal experience with the Tea Party. YMMV of course.
It’s funny, but I’ve seen lefties who are totally opposed to these leaks and think that criminal proceedings should be enacted against Assange and Wikileaks, and right wingers who think it was a great thing…and vice versa. I’m unsure why people think that this particular thing breaks down along right/left lines…it really doesn’t. Partly it breaks down along the lines of who’s gore was oxed, and partly it breaks down along the lines of folks who feel that some things should be made public or handled by our representatives, and some who feel that nothing (or very little) should be kept from the public, and that transparency is the best course of action. And those things really don’t fit well in a left/right model, since they easily cross those lines depending on ones stance on the core issue.
Agreed. Also, because the tea party is a pure opt-in ad hoc group with no official leaders, I don’t think it makes much sense to talk about “the tea party position” on any issue really other than fiscal conservatism. It’s like asking about “the atheist position” on anything unrelated to a belief in god.
Well, there is also a Tea Party Caucus in Congress; and I believe Congressional caucuses rarely limit themselves to a single issue – that is, its members, being in Congress, have to deal with all manner of national business.
There are some serious drawbacks to Wikileaks, even from a libertarian perspective.
It’s one thing to release documents proving government malfeasance, corruption, or lawbreaking. That’s in the true whistleblower spirit, and I think everyone can agree with that.
However, Wikileaks did a lot more than that - it dumped anything that could be seen as interesting, embarassing, or prurient. That means it will have a chilling effect on communications within the government, and could ultimately lead to an unintended consequence of even more secrecy and compartmentalization.
Organizations need to have free and open internal communications that are protected from outside eyes. I don’t know about you, but if a government official asks a diplomat for his opinion about a world leader, I want that diplomat to tell him exactly what he thinks. But if communications are insecure, you’re going to get more mealy-mouthed evasions and everything will be parsed with a razor blade to make sure it’s not ‘offensive’. And that will hurt internal communications and make the government less effective and lead to diplomatic errors.
The real sensitive stuff will be reserved for private, face-to-face conversation, and then we won’t even have a paper trail to follow.
Well, Assange isn’t some mealy-headed goo-goo; although he sometimes references transparency for rhetorical value, Wikileaks is driven by a different vision of institutional change.
Traditionally, leaks and transparency are good, because they allow for people outside the institution to apply pressure to it and change it. But Assange believes the opposite: secrecy is what allows centralized organizations to function. It’s the source of free information flows, shared expectations, and coordinated action.
From a radically libertarian perspective, these organizations are the source of what ails the world. By indiscriminately releasing information, Wikileaks is undermining those institutions in a very fundamental way. It scleroticizes government, driving it deeper into paranoia and making it less effective at all the nefarious tasks it does.
In effect, you agree with him about what it will do to government. It’s just a difference of whether you think that’s a good thing or not.
As a semi-libertarian and Tea Party sympathizer, I would say I agree with Zephyurs.
Disclosure of state secrets may or may not undermine the security of the nation. How that affects the greater good is the question.
My preference is that the government be transparent, but I’m not so foolish as to assume that spying is, by default, out of the question. Gathering intelligence is part and parcel to any government. It really doesn’t come down to which party is in power.
So, I’m a bit confused by the question.
The Tea Party people seem to be a bit more motivated by government largess, not the proper role the government plays in diplomacy.