# Why do the GOP's most hard-line authoritarians call themselves the "Freedom Caucus"? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 24, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967 "2017-03-24T23:21:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/41 "2017-03-26T14:15:03Z")
> [@CosmicManiac](#): > > You clearly have no idea what the word “authoritarian” means, and I would strongly suggest paying a visit to your local library for a Merriam Webster’s dictionary. You clearly dislike the Freedom Caucus, given your hyperbolic comparison of them to slaveowners, which is fine. But nothing they advocate could reasonably be considered “slavery” in any way, shape or form. Actually, they do: capitalism. > [@](#): > > They believe in capitalism and the free market Which is a slave system: you are coerced into obeying the will of someone else, because if you don’t you starve to death. > [@](#): > > No Freedom Caucus Republican has ever told anyone to starve to death or blindly “do what their capitalist masters” tell them to. They don’t have to say it–it’s structurally inherent in capitalism, so it happens with or without anyone verbalizing it. You really don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/42 "2017-03-26T14:16:08Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Never mind that your entire post is missing the point of this thread, I will address this part. > In case you didn’t notice it, the hilariously failed attempt to repeal ACA had money going back to the most wealthy Americans at the cost of insurance for the poor. Now, an attempt to shift even more of the tax burden away from wealthy and corporate entities seems like a good idea? You often hear politicians talking about the importance of the middle class, yet shit like ‘tax reform’ is destroying the middle class, expanding the lower class and enriching just a handful. Is that what you stand for? Yes, because that will further increase the material dependence of the masses on the capitalist class, thus strengthening the slave system they support. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/43 "2017-03-26T14:33:27Z")
Join Date Feb 2017. DNFTT. (We usually get righty wing-nut economic types on this MB, but we apparently have a rare sighting of the lefty version.) ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/44 "2017-03-26T15:14:25Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Never mind that your entire post is missing the point of this thread, I will address this part. > [@](#): > > You often hear politicians talking about the importance of the middle class, yet shit like ‘tax reform’ is destroying the middle class, expanding the lower class and enriching just a handful. Is that what you stand for? I submit that missing the point is the point. Stare into the light of right-wing ideology long enough and it blinds one to the coarse realities of this world. Capitalism is good, full stop. Regulation is bad, full stop. This all takes places in a rarefied, Platonic plane of abstract, ethical imperative. Detail-oriented questions like “How many people in America can actually afford health care?”, “Where is the poverty line in America, and in which direction is the population flowing over it?”, “What is the actual, quantified balance of military power in the world today, and does it indicate military budget cuts or increases will do the greatest good for the common man?” will only make them angry: Are you too dense to get the point? they’ll ask. Capitalism is good, regulations are bad, can’t you _see_!? There’s a flip side, pieces of rhetoric that are surely the voice of Conservative Satan himself. Bolding mine: > [@](#): > > We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, **establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility** , provide for the common defence, **promote the general Welfare** , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. > [@](#): > > **Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion** , or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and **to petition the Government for a redress of grievances**. Domestic tranquility? Unrest has unknowable causes! It isn’t _the role of government_ to address those causes, even if the People, for and by whom the government is established, petitions that government with grievances about the effects of Freedom Caucus-style policies. Sorry, we’d like to hear your grievance and respond in some material way, but before you air it, know that it just isn’t the role of government to do anything about it! The problem is that you are lazy and lacking in personal responsibility, sorry, freeloader. And so the religious rubes who think they are staring into the same blinding light as their aristocratic elites at least get the comfort of messages on TV and radio that they are on the right team and doing the right thing, for exactly as long as they don’t rock the boat, even though it remains an unanswered question why their kids can’t get their asthma treated and will never go to college, while the kids of the elites consume MDMA at raves in Ibiza on the weekends. Freedom my ass. It is Orwellian doublespeak, that is the answer. They seek to actually undermine the constitution so that they can get these pesky “people” out of the way of their aristocratic intentions. Justice be damned. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/45 "2017-03-26T17:00:59Z")
French caucus doesn’t sound as good as freedom caucus. Remember Freedom fries? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/46 "2017-03-26T20:23:15Z")
Free to be you and me. (As long as you’re exactly like me, that is.) ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/47 "2017-03-26T23:57:23Z")
Is it really news that “Freedom” has been co-opted into “Making America Great” or “Loving your Country” (while hating 90% of its people). All those soldiers who died (in the wars we stage for every generation) died to gain YOUR FREEDOM! Newspeak has been identified for 3 generations now. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/48 "2017-03-27T00:51:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Libertarians are just passive-aggressive authoritarians. Liberterians are just Bizarro-World Marxists. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/49 "2017-03-27T02:02:57Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I submit that missing the point is the point. > > Stare into the light of right-wing ideology long enough and it blinds one to the coarse realities of this world. Capitalism is good, full stop. Regulation is bad, full stop. This all takes places in a rarefied, Platonic plane of abstract, ethical imperative. > > Detail-oriented questions like “How many people in America can actually afford health care?”, “Where is the poverty line in America, and in which direction is the population flowing over it?”, “What is the actual, quantified balance of military power in the world today, and does it indicate military budget cuts or increases will do the greatest good for the common man?” will only make them angry: Are you too dense to get the point? they’ll ask. Capitalism is good, regulations are bad, can’t you _see_!? > > There’s a flip side, pieces of rhetoric that are surely the voice of Conservative Satan himself. Bolding mine: > Domestic tranquility? Unrest has unknowable causes! It isn’t _the role of government_ to address those causes, even if the People, for and by whom the government is established, petitions that government with grievances about the effects of Freedom Caucus-style policies. Sorry, we’d like to hear your grievance and respond in some material way, but before you air it, know that it just isn’t the role of government to do anything about it! The problem is that you are lazy and lacking in personal responsibility, sorry, freeloader. > > And so the religious rubes who think they are staring into the same blinding light as their aristocratic elites at least get the comfort of messages on TV and radio that they are on the right team and doing the right thing, for exactly as long as they don’t rock the boat, even though it remains an unanswered question why their kids can’t get their asthma treated and will never go to college, while the kids of the elites consume MDMA at raves in Ibiza on the weekends. > > Freedom my ass. It is Orwellian doublespeak, that is the answer. They seek to actually undermine the constitution so that they can get these pesky “people” out of the way of their aristocratic intentions. Justice be damned. “Regulation bad”… except when it’s regulation of your sexual or reproductive behavior. Then Regulation Good. To be fair, some of them _do_ live in a Faith-Based-Policy world in which they are _sincerely_ existentially convinced that all social ills are the result of individual bad life choices and if only everyone made the same individual good life choices all social ills would vanish, so society owes nothing to those who fell behind and if some do fall behind through pure misfortune, well, such is life until the Millennium arrives. The appeal is to authoritarianism not in the sense of some ideological strongman principle (thus the pushback against Combover Boy by the so-called Freedom Caucusers) but to authoritarianism in the sense that order is the primary value, it’s some Higher Power that set forth how things should be, and it’s not ours to question that order mandated from Above. WHILE WE’RE AT IT, HOWEVER… No, I’m sorry, I am NOT buying the equation of capitalism _per se_ with slavery. That is just mirroring Von Hayek who claimed socialism was serfdom. Bulldada in both directions. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/50 "2017-03-27T02:10:14Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > No, I’m sorry, I am NOT buying the equation of capitalism _per se_ with slavery. That is just mirroring Von Hayek who claimed socialism was serfdom. Bulldada in both directions. Hardly. The vast majority of people have no choice but to submit themselves to capitalist employment, because if they do not then they will starve. They might, at times, have the (often illusory) choice of masters–but that’s not the same as no masters. It’s a system of forced labor and exploitation at the hands of others. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/51 "2017-03-27T02:48:01Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > They are ‘freedom fighters’. > > Think about it… > Batman is a crime fighter. He fights crime. > My nephew is a fire fighter. He fights fires. If olive oil comes from squeezed olives, where does baby oil come from? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/52 "2017-03-27T13:31:04Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Hardly. > > The vast majority of people have no choice but to submit themselves to capitalist employment, because if they do not then they will starve. It is a trait common to all human beings throughout the history of the world that if they don’t work, food doesn’t get grown and clothes don’t get made and everyone starves or dies of exposure. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but we have to work. How, precisely, you organize the work can be done a number of different ways, but ultimately people gotta work. The “masters” are the laws of thermodynamics. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/53 "2017-03-27T13:53:44Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Hardly. > > The vast majority of people have no choice but to submit themselves to capitalist employment, because if they do not then they will starve. They might, at times, have the (often illusory) choice of masters–but that’s not the same as no masters. > > It’s a system of forced labor and exploitation at the hands of others. Yes people should just exist and have their needs met. As soon as they imagine a need for a thirst quenching beverage it should materialize right in their throats. Damn Scarcity. Probably a racist. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/54 "2017-03-27T14:13:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It is a trait common to all human beings throughout the history of the world that if they don’t work, food doesn’t get grown and clothes don’t get made and everyone starves or dies of exposure. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but we have to work. So you can’t read? Because I never said the problem was work–the problem is capitalist employment. Nature imposes an obligation to do shit, but it doesn’t impose a particular social relationship on top of doing shit. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/55 "2017-03-27T14:14:48Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Yes people should just exist and have their needs met. As soon as they imagine a need for a thirst quenching beverage it should materialize right in their throats. Damn Scarcity. Probably a racist. Illiteracy is not a virtue. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/56 "2017-03-27T14:16:33Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > They are worthless and weak and _should be pissed on_ at your e-v-e-r-y convenience. I suppose inspiring Pumpkinhead’s personal jealousy is one way to exacerbate the cracks in the party… ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/57 "2017-03-27T15:53:48Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > So you can’t read? > > Because I never said the problem was work–the problem is capitalist employment. > > Nature imposes an obligation to do shit, but it doesn’t impose a particular social relationship on top of doing shit. You are aware of terms like “Alpha Male,” “Leader of the Pack,” and “Survival of the Fittest” right? Yes, Nature does impose a particular social relationship, because that’s in its nature. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/58 "2017-03-27T16:12:42Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Hardly. > > The vast majority of people have no choice but to submit themselves to capitalist employment, because if they do not then they will starve. They might, at times, have the (often illusory) choice of masters–but that’s not the same as no masters. > > It’s a system of forced labor and exploitation at the hands of others. You seem to be quoting Marxist/Communist doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/59 "2017-03-27T16:32:46Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > You are aware of terms like “Alpha Male,” “Leader of the Pack,” and “Survival of the Fittest” right? Yes, Nature does impose a particular social relationship, because that’s in its nature. In the realm of social relations among humans, those things aren’t part of nature; they’re socially-constructed. We’re not wolves; we’re not creatures of instinct. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967/60 "2017-03-27T16:40:39Z")
Of course we’re not wolves - we’re primates. Clever, snappy dressing primates with a weird passing fancy towards digital watches, but we still exist within the context of evolved behaviour driven by the primate bands we evolved from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-gops-most-hard-line-authoritarians-call-themselves-the-freedom-caucus/782967.md?page=4)