May 18, 2012
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Think Tank For Teapartiers

Posted on December 16, 2010 by in Articles

I’m always thinking about how we can to continue to move our so-called  Tea Party Movement ideology forward. Ironically, moving our ideology forward means moving us back toward the Founding Fathers’ principles from which our country has been deviating for the last 100-ish years.

We Teapartiers have been great at organizing protests and rallies. We’ve been great at GOTV. We’ve been great at all the typical things a grassroots movement should do. However, it’s been my opinion for quite some time, that we need a respected group of individuals giving voice to our positions to help shape the thinking in DC, and among the state legislatures. In some circumstances, melting the phones isn’t enough – we need more proactive, and less reactive, in general.

Groups like Heritage, CATO, CEI, Ayn Rand, etc, are all good policy groups, but NONE of them embody the spirit of our movement. And they occasionally miss the mark completely, from a Teapartier’s perspective – i.e. Heritage and their support of Romneycare.

Over the last few months, I’ve approached many people about this Tea Party think tank idea; Tea Party members, conservative/constitutionalist donors, and other similar politically-minded individuals, and they’re all in favor of it, and most have been rather excited about it.

I’ll keep you all informed of progress as I have noteworthy updates. If you have people in your circles whom you think would be a good fit for this endeavor, please send them my way.

Here’s to another step in the direction of our country’s return to individual Liberty.

Cheers!

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  • http://twitter.com/betsyclark Betsy Clark

    Absolutely great idea. It’s critical to define what the Tea Party is for, and not only what it’s against. It’s good to be against policies that are destructive to our country, but the foundation needs to be defined (it’s already been built) and protected by outlining what will take our country to where it needs to be.

    • http://brooksbayne.com brooksbayne

      the movement has had plenty of experience reacting. it’s time to be proactive. the movement has had core principles from day one. fiscal responsibility, limited government, national sovereignty are a few.

  • http://www.facebook.com/yaygrr Jt McCorkle

    it’s still a very primitive idea at this point (and very much open to criticism/modification), but what about organizing a think tank that has checks and balances among three groups?

    for instance, the way i see it, there are three primary divisions that the tea party is concerned with & could be incorporated into the think tank as such:

    government
    -federal, state, & local elected officials
    -’tea party backed’
    -have the capability of creating, endorsing, and/or pushing legislation or policy
    -vow to do/vote as agreed upon after deliberating with the other divisions or face consequences: loss of position in the think tank and/or support for reelection

    commerce
    -american business owners (in any capacity: small, corporate, global)
    -fiscally/ethically conservative
    -vow to not use loopholes, unreasonable outsourcing (or face additional taxes/penalties), or hire illegal workers
    -vow to alert the other divisions about potential loopholes in order to have them closed
    -can articulate what they’d like from government & citizenry in order to prosper

    people
    -american citizens who are aware of the issues
    -want lower, fair taxation (not necessarily the FairTax™)
    -want smaller, more effective, more efficient government
    -want fair & reasonable limits on business & commerce
    -have an equal say among the other divisions in order to prevent them from running rampant

    • http://brooksbayne.com brooksbayne

      i haven’t thought of it in this way. it’s interesting. i’ll mull it over.

      leave it to you to be wholly unique, jt!

      • http://twitter.com/BFranklin14 Frank Liebert

        I like JtMcCorkles concept. Lets use the Constitution as our template and divide the focus by;Legislative , Executive and Judicial. This way folks who have a particular interest can concentrate in that area. Each of the three can designate a “watchdog” to alarm the folks if a particular matter requires “immediate” attention. I would also like to propose the idea of “term limits” to all positions of leadership. Afterall we have the same human weaknesses as everyone does. Regards,

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1578835715 Trish Lee

    It would be great if we could get a real consensus for what the Tea Party movement is really about. So many have tried to hijack it that I often feel like I am not really part of the Tea Party movement. If one of the “think tank” main concerns would be to clearly define what their purpose should be, then I am completely on board.

    • http://brooksbayne.com brooksbayne

      trish, a person doesn’t need to tell you that they’re a leader. that should be evident by what they do in their daily walk. i’ve called out the shysters in the movement from early on. it’s no secret who’s doing things for personal gain and who’s legitimately doing things for the love of liberty. hell, if politico can write a story about the shysters, and get it right in most cases, ppl in the movement should be able to discern as well.

  • http://twitter.com/BunkerBlast Chris Future

    This is a great idea. We absolutely need this. It would be great that instead of it being a typical monolithic physical and theoretical think tank, like Cato and the others you mention, that its more of a virtual and practical think tank – leveraging the braintrust of the whole movement, wherever it is, and presenting immediately implementable solutions which can help drive us in the right direction.

    One of the major strengths of the Tea Party movement, as opposed to the libertarians (which is what I used to ally myself more with) is that these other movements tend to be more theoretical and not provide practical, immediate solutions.

    IMHO more than any other groups, we want to see real change immediately, and work to implement those changes right away. Some of these other groups are much more into talk and education, than action.

    • http://brooksbayne.com brooksbayne

      what’s missing in many of the think tank work product is the spirit of patriotism. a lot of the folks in dc are busy trying to out egghead each other. i have no desire to be more of an egghead than anyone else. my motivation is to put collectivism in its place – the historical garbage can.

      many of us have organized, spoke at rallies/protests, written blogs, etc. and there’s a lot of this brain trust already out there – aggregating the positions and the ppl behind them won’t be difficult. we’re all eager for liberty to have a hedge.

      i had nearly the same conversation with bill hennessy of the st louis tea party last night. were you eavesdropping? ;)

  • Doug Edelman

    I WANT IN!!!

    Check me out at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com

    Doug Edelman

  • http://www.maritz.com/News-Events-and-Insights/Social-Community/Man-vs-Brand.aspx Bill Hennessy

    As Ronald Reagan said, liberty is never more than one generation away from extinction. Here’s to this new, bold venture: may this generation of liberty’s champions stay young and vibrant forever; may the Lord smile upon its endeavors; and may its enemies crash upon the rocks and shoals of history.

    Cheers!

  • http://blogodidact.blogspot.com/ Van

    Back behind defining what the Tea Party is for, and the actions the Tea Party needs to be taking, there needs to be something providing the Why for each of those, and providing a basis for winning the arguments we face for the positions we take and the actions we take to implement them.

    Won’t be very glamorous, and should always ready to take a backseat to the urgencies of the moment, but still we need to have something which educates people (and enlarges our pool of supporters) in the Why’s of what we do, and how they can become part of supporting and furthering the argument for the Tea Party… beyond “The Founders said it, I believe it, that settles it” – that’s a weakness too easily used against us.

    And if we want our success to stand the test of the next few elections, it’s critical that our positions rest upon something more solid than the latest headlines. For those people who understand why what we’re after is critical, they become self motivating entities themselves. People HAVE been doing this on their own, but it can, and should, be done better.

    Larry Arn in Hillsdale Colleges latest Imprimis (Nov), sums it up well in an “Outline of a Platform for Constitutional Government”:
    “There is only one way to return to living under the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the institutions of the Constitution. We must come to love those things again. And if we love them, then we will serve them. But we cannot love them until we understand them. And we cannot understand them until we know them. So the first step is to study them and teach them, and Hillsdale College comes to Washington meaning to do that. We aim to create an atmosphere in this city of the study and knowledge and understanding and love of the principles of America.”

    Without that, our success will last only as long as the media remembers them.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1156385344 Chris Loesch

    I’m in.

  • http://twitter.com/KTrader KTrader

    I thought Norm Coleman was starting some sort of conservative think tank–heard anything about that?

  • http://www.facebook.com/JenBahr Jennifer Deunk Bahr

    Absolutely we NEED a (or many) group(s) of liberty-minded people sharing ideas and coming up with practical solutions. As the wife of a brand-new state legislator who shares TEA party values, I can affirm that input and suggestions from outside Jefferson City are sorely needed. There is only so much one person can do, and any help you can give to Reps and Senators who share your vision would be much appreciated – from concepts, to supporting research (this one is especially needed), all the way to fleshed-out bills, PLEASE send them to your Rep or one who you know will be listening. Thank you for not giving up on the process!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1399121074 Elijah Wells

    I think the TEA party needs to stick with the fight against bigger government and higher taxes. It seems that there are some groups that have broken off and started doing their own thing. I personally think that is a bad idea when you stray from the main ideology that started the TEA parties in the first place. This is just a 17 year old’s opinion.