Gene Healy
The Washington Examiner
3/4/2014
It’s been five years since Rick Santelli’s CNBC “rant that shook the world” helped give rise to the Tea Party movement.
The first wave of anti-big-government protests began in the cities, and they were “about as libertarian as it gets,” as political number-cruncher Nate Silver put it at the time: light on moralism, heavy on “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets,” per the “Tea Party Patriots” founding credo.
At the massive Sept. 12, 2009, Tea Party rally in Washington, Ron Paul’s kids mixed with graying Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers; I snapped pictures of “What Would Mises Do?” signs and an erudite codger with a placard blaring: “Austrian Business Cycle Theory!” Could it be — some of us dared hope — that we were witnessing the birth of that unlikeliest of creatures: a libertarian mass-movement?…
…whatever errors they’ve made along the way, the Tea Partiers identified the right target: our profligate political class. That class will continue to reign, unless and until they’re confronted with a citizen movement that marries passion with sound judgment.
Read the complete article at The Washington Examiner.
