If the Tea Party was serious about their anti-war stance, that would be great, as the liberal anti-war movement has all but disappeared.

I find it dreadful that suddenly liberals or the mainstream left in the United States have dropped their opposition to the wars, which are so wrong and so costly. The state gone mad.

Who was it who said that "war is the business of the state."?

I war pursued by Democats is better than war pursued by Republicans.

It's ghastly and sickening that so many high-profile liberals were so down on Bush when he was president, he was truly demonized; yet they remain virtually silent when Obama follows the same policies, only he's "cool" and Bush wasn't. To hell with all of them. It's war that's the enemy, regardless of who's the guy in the White House!

Wow! I'm really starting to sound like I'm a Tea Party member!

What also irritates me is when comfortable, socalled, liberal/left people in the UK dismiss the Tea Party with such distain, and pointedly ignore Ron Paul and Rand Paul's criticisms, statements about these awful wars, the bailout of Wall Street and the growth and threat to liberty of centralized state power gone mad.

Where I differ from the Tea Party is in its attitude towards the state. I don't think the state is "socialist" invention. I think the state is just as much an invention of modern Capitalism, which actually needs the state to survive.

As an anarchist with strong libertarian convictions, I'd be more than happy to see the state wither and die, only as it's entwined with Capitalism, in the modern corporate state, I fear this is going to be somewhat of a challenge going forward!

Dave,

What you said about the authentic voice of the Tea Party is interesing, and would be an eye-opener for many people in the UK, that's if they ever heard it. The mainstream UK press is totally in awe of Obama, or was. Some of the things they wrote about him were so over-the-top and "loving" it's hard to believe they actually wrote them.

What's fascinating is that what you are describing as core Tea Party values, sound remarkably similar to the clash of values that, (dare I even say it?) led to the Civil War. The American Civil War, not the English Civil War, though come to think of it, maybe there are some parallels there too. But I think it's probably not a good idea to go down that particular road, given peoples' attitudes towards the South and the causes of the Civil War.

Islam. Islam. Islam. Always Islam. Put another record on, old chap.

Is it just me? Or is Benedict an actual nut-job?

The Tea Party is significant though, whether it "exists" as a normal political force, or not. I'm afraid I find the argument a bit odd, and strangely irrelevant. But then I put far more emphasis on the concept of Power in society than most Liberals do.

The Tea Party, is, like most political movements, including parties, a coalition. But the Tea Party because it's such a new coalition, is a real mash-up. If, and it's a big if, it crystalizes into something more permanent, it will evolve. It'll either swallow the Republicans whole, or be swallowed by them.

In some respects some parts of the Tea Party remind me of the S.A. or Brownshirt, part of the German N.A.Z.I. party. That is, rightwing, nationalist, social revolutionaries, determined to topple the ruling-class, by force in necessary.

This is a worrying development. As in Wiemar Germany, can the traditional Right control the beast they have set loose?

I kind of agree with Noam Chomskey, who recently opined that if an "honest" Rightwing leader appeared in the US who had brains and charism and wasn't corrupt, he would rapidly become a real force in the country politically.

The question is, is the Tea Party the vanguard of a particularly American form of Fascism? Perhaps not, mainly because they have such narrow and primative concept of the role of the state in society, and how modern "Capitalism", or as I prefer, the modern corporate state, desparately needs the state to survive and prosper, as arguably, it always has.

So, one can argue, that one is seeing the birth of new type of Fascism, that's doomed to failure from the start, because they don't understand the vital role of the state.

Are they going to change their view of the state? Perhaps, but will it be soon enough?

The US version of modern politics is falling apart, and no longer functions properly. The two main factions, the Democrats and Republicans, have one another in a kind of death grip, which is also a kind of gridlock. They are now, and this is disasterous for the rest of society, consumed by their own rhetoric, leading to a form of political paralysis.

This means that, compared to China, where the ruling elite is firmly in charge and can actually rule effectively, in the US the opposite is the case, and that is not going to change anytime soon.

If Obama had been a progressive and a reformer, a real leader, with ideas and courage, things might have moved in a different direction, but alas he wasn't any of those things, and now the course is set for chaos and national decline. Reversing that decline is going to be a monumental challenge.

Let's just hope a weakened and helpless Obama doesn't resort, or is pushed, towards playing the war card, the last resort of an empire on the skids of history. Recent statements by members of the American elite give one cause for conern.

The point is, that Obama won't remain in power, because he never really was in power.

The US system wes engineered to split power so that no one person could ever have it, and become a kind of king.

At least that's the theory, the seperation of power, theory, and a lof was done to turn that theory into practice, to ensure that power was always split, with the president the weakest part of the three columns of political power.

A lot's change over the centuries and the role of the president expanded out of all recognition as the United States became the world's largest economic and military power, when it became an empire, the president became an emperor.

@writeon, a couple of days ago you denied that you had drawn a parallel between the Tea Party and the nazis. But nazi philosophy was built on the insignificance of the individual before the state: can you give me an example of an instance where anyone representing the tea party has said anything along the same lines?

Your thinking about Fascism and the state is muddled. Fascism is the absolute apotheosis of the power of the state, so how can a libertarian organisation be fascist?