Some Confused Tea Partiers

A middle school teacher blogged about his opposition to the Tea Party movement. Now some in the movement are calling for action by the school district in Oregon where the teacher is employed. Where to begin on this one?

I’ll start just by mentioning that this article, which appeared in my inbox from an education mailing list, is not very subtle in their bias on this one. In addition, it refers to “the Tea Party” as if there is a single registered political party of that name. This is spontaneous grouping of activists with no top-down control. That may change in the future, but for now, there are only people affiliated with the movement. There’s not even a single national PAC as far as I can tell.

Now onto the relevance of the title of this post. An academic whose opinions do not align with the dominant left-liberal (or neo-con, for that matter) views of academia, may be a little concerned that blogging these opinions could have serious repercussions on her career. There are two routes she can take: 1) oppose sanctions against academic bloggers in the name of academic freedom or 2) encourage sanctions against those she disagrees in the name of revenge. These tea partiers have taken the second course, which is counterproductive. Even in the case of a private employer, who certainly has a right to discriminate based on political views in my libertarian world-view, this does not mean that I should or would lobby for such discrimination.

In addition, the tea partiers are clearly concerned about making government more accountable, more efficient, and less corrupt. This is a dead end. The very nature of government is to encourage corruption and inefficiency. Sure it is wrong for an employee to use his employer’s time and resources for political blogging without permission, but to expect that those on the dole will choose “right” over “wrong” belies an ignorance of economics.

If these tea partiers (perhaps just a few in the local area of this school district) believed in freedom, they would not take a side in this issue. They would state that they believe in free speech, are opposed to tax-payer funded mandatory schooling, and leave it at that.

Share

9:11 am on April 30, 2010