Catholics and The Tea Party Movement

I defend the Tea Party movement on here and also give it criticism. I am aligned with it on some issues and not on others.

The reason I am not a Tea Party Guy is:

First , it sort of has a Libertarian ethos about it and I am not a Libertarian.

Second it seems to have a lot of Club For Growth types. After watching how they acted against Huckabee where it seems raising gas taxes to build roads in Arkansas was heresy I decided they were not for me.

Last but not least and most important I suspect they are very unfriendly to immigration reform. That is ok. However there is no need for me to get involved in the Tea party movement if on that issue in the future I will be denounced as TEA PARTY IN NAME ONLY person. I get the RINO charge enough as to that issue. Why add to the insults and blog /forum bannings.

So while I share common cause with them and respect them I have a idea that my dissent on just a couple issues would label me a heretic. I have better things to do. In other words I am questioning how much internal dissent and discussion will be allowed. The immigration debate was pretty wounding to me and being called a traitor and quisling got old fast. Why endure that if it is on steroids.

Now VOX NOVA has a interesting post that interacts with a Deal Hudson piece taking about a Catholic Tea Party.

Now what Deal Hudson is talking about is a more Catholic Tea Party type thing dealing with internal Church issues. I think this is a very very very bad idea. For the record Deal responds to his critics here at this post which I think shows his goals are limited in this regard.

I am not sure exactly what Deal Hudson is envisioning. I do think it is important that American Catholics that have concerns should be active in saying our viewpoints on these numerous issues need be consulted and there needs to be reform. However I think a Catholic Tea party movement would just spin out of control and we would have conservative leaning Catholics acting just like the leftist NCR Catholics. The problem with movements is unless it has leadership it can spin quickly into something else.

Now going back to the political Tea Party which seems to be in the background.

The only thing I mostly agree with as to the description given of the Tea Party itself is this one partial part of one sentence "It’s positions are contradictory, inconsistent...."

Ok I agree with that.

It has a Libertarians ethos but that Libertarians ethos often departs from traditional Libertarian thought. See immigration as a prime example. What is the Tea Party stance on the war on drugs? Who knows. Can I be in the Tea party and support NAFTA or will I have to hear about the supposed evil NAFTA highway 24/7 and the amero.

I think there are contradictions because well it is made up of many factions. The big questions is how will the Tea party deal with all this. A crucial question for its survival. Contradictions are nothing new in a young political movement. I mean look at Ron Paul and how diverse that coalition was.

Who will come out on top is what we don't know. As I have posted before I think the Tea Party Movement if it survives will look different from region to region. There might be a pro-choice leaning Tea Party and a more pro-life tea party. There might be a protectionist tea party and a more free trade tea party. There might be a pro gay Marriage leaning Tea Party and a more no to same sex marriage Tea party.

Or perhaps it will come down from above is just one position. We don't know. For all the talk of local control and no to big Government the Tea Party movement nationwide had no problem it seems getting involved in a New York Race and endorsing a carpetbagger that had to have map to get around the district. So we shall see.

I suspect in the end like many populist movement if history is a guide it will die out or be absorbed. We shall again see.

I do take strong disagreement with Morning Minions view of the racial motivationof the Tea Party. No doubt there are some Council of Conservative Citizens types and other wackos wandering around but I don't think this has much to do with race. This has been building for some time.