Posted on 06/18/2013 5:45:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A repudiation of my “tea partiers aren’t that libertarian” thesis or an illustration of it?
We won’t know until there’s a Republican in the White House again.
All of the numbers are extraordinary there, but the most eye-popping is the fact that the only other partisan segment that agrees with TPers that Snowden’s FISA/PRISM leak was in the public interest are … liberals. In a separate question, Pew asked people if they would feel “violated” if they knew that the government had collected their data; then they divided the results up by various demographics — sex, race, age, education, partisanship, you name it. Among 17 different demographic slices, the one with the highest percentage saying that hey would indeed feel violated was tea partiers at fully 78 percent. The second-rate, from independents, was a distant second at just 69 percent. Proof positive that Rand Paul’s right and I’m wrong about a deep, permanent libertarian shift within the GOP? Or merely an artifact of sharp partisanship fueled by tea partiers’ total distrust of The One? Hmm:
That doesn’t prove anything, of course. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that the two parties’ views of interventionism and the surveillance state won’t revert to what they were circa 2007 once the executive branch changes hands again. Some Democrats, having now heard a president they support extol the virtues of a post-9/11 NSA, will see counterterror surveillance in a different light permanently going forward. Some Republicans, having now been forced to trust a president they loathe with massive domestic intelligence capabilities, will never again support government’s security prerogative the way they once did. The million-dollar question is how deep and broad those sorts of shifts in perspective are. That’s the core of the Cruz/Paul distinction. Cruz has “concerns” in principle with the scope of NSA surveillance but the crux of his objection seems to be that Obama is uniquely untrustworthy. If that’s true, then having a Republican back in office will make some of his constituents comfortable again with broad surveillance. Paul’s objection to surveillance has less to do with Obama than with the nature of government power itself. Supporters of his who’ve made the shift to doctrinaire libertarianism aren’t coming back around to NSA power just because a GOPer is in charge. (Unless it’s Rand himself?) What percentage of tea partiers who object to Obama’s NSA are in Cruz’s camp versus Paul’s camp?
Give Rand credit, though, for identifying younger voters as being potentially receptive to his message uniquely among Republicans. If Pew’s numbers are right, that’s absolutely true: Americans aged 18-29 are the most likely among the various age demographics to object to government data collection (55 percent) and also the most likely to see Snowden’s leaks as serving the public interest (60 percent). A majority of every age group and of the public at large thinks Snowden should be prosecuted — except young voters, who oppose it, 44/50. If you’re worried about young adults once again crippling the GOP at the polls over issues like gay marriage, taking a strong Paulian line on government intrusions on digital privacy is one way to hedge.
Exit question: How to reconcile Pew’s findings with this data from this morning’s CNN poll?
Just a coincidence that he dumps the stuff in China.
No thanks. I’m not buying his innocence.
I like the fact that he is helping to keep Obama busy.
Obama just causes trouble when he has time on his hands.
Question 19 is a leading question, IMO.
Its not even about support for Snowden from this tea partier.
Its about disgust with massive zombie government that spends a half trillion dollars per year on make work projects for defense contractors while shredding the constitution.
Its about being treated like morons when they feed us crap about how Snowden is a traitor but Leaky Leahy went unpunished and Sandy Berger got a light slap on the wrist.
Its about the utter stupidity of claiming the NSA is keeping us safe while our borders are wide open and we have a pro muslim immigration policy. Terrorists could rent a billboard and advertize an impending attack for 6 months and our “intelligence” agencies would miss it.
Its about tea partiers being treated like an enemy and muslims getting special protections.
Well, Rush did tell us that when Obama finally stepped in it with the low-info voter, it would be something from totally out of left field that none of us could have foreseen.
Barry has apparently set all the bridges afire with his coveted Under-30’s thanks to Snowden. All over a program that has existed in one form or another since the 1980’s. Sweet irony!
At this point, the American government is a bigger threat to Americans than the Chinese government.
There is a huge, huge opportunity to bring 20-year-olds into the Tea Party tent, if they decide that personal liberty ultimately is more important than redistribution of other people’s assets.
I see you’ve taken the bait offered up by our rulers. Rather than being appalled at the violation of our rights, you’re deciding the innocence or guilt of Snowden. Or to put it in the sensational manner of our media, “Is Snowden a HEEERO or a DESPICABLE TREACHEROUS TRAITOR????”
I don't know...I still think that the homosexual agenda and "women's health" issues trump everything with the majority in this demographic as they wrongly feel they have the enlightened opinion on these topics. I would love to be wrong.
Tea Partiers are going to experience a case of political indigestion when they come up against the Under-30’s on issues like abortion, gay marriage and marijuana legalization.
This crowd spends every waking minute of their life online. The thought that someone from the Government may have intercepted their party photos and their sexting offends them far more than the idea they might someday have to pay for their own birth control.
Yes, but if they begin to understand the limits of federal governmental control some of those issues will be less important, others may revert to the states, and on some we might lose — but the general ethos that excessive governmental involvement leads to tyranny will be more broadly accepted once again in our nation.
I find that table, “Since ‘06”, to be enlightening.
According to IT, it’s the (gasp!) independents who seem to be faithful to their principles while the Rs and Ds ebb and flow according to the administration in power.
Not only does it keep O busy, but during the programming time that MSNBC libs are whining about O snooping on them they cant be calling the GOP racists, sexists, homophobes.
anyone who release information or material that has been classified that the enemy (in this case, Al Qaeda and it’s affiliates, DPRK, Iran, Assad’s Syria, etc) can use against us is guilty of treason. this include Bradley Manning, Snowden, and Leahy (and any other politician that leaks info from classified intelligence subcommittee hearings).
being a “young adult” myself, i can already see this happening. a lot of young, low info potential voters have no morality whatsoever, or are willing to disregard it. However, these are also the people who are most likely to agree with the Tea Party movement on privacy (mostly because they want to keep their illegal downloading sites and methods safe, not because they have any regard for American civil liberties).
You mean the same Al Qaeda that we are arming?
The government is virtually indistinguishable from the traitors.
i’m on of those R’s that switched. The hell i don’t want Obama looking at my information. But that’s not because i don’t believe it’s the governments responsibility to do so to weed out terrorists and would be mass murders (although i do think the average gun-toting civilian could do the job of keeping us safe if there are a higher number of ‘em in public). I don’t want a criminal administration who seeks to expand unconstitutional miranda rights and priveleges to terrorists while seeking to increase the availability of “birth control” and abortion providers at the expense of tax payers.
i agree.
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