In general, though, I think he's right that a majority of the
>> Tea Party's liberal/left opponents actually have more in common with it,
>> than it does with the "states' rights" caricature they draw of it.
>>
>
> Maybe, if you leave aside things like social spending and financial and
> environmental regulation.
But these are all secondary, if not tertiary factors. I don't/can't/wouldn't wanna speak for Jack, but I think that the Tea Partiers' positions on these points stem directly from their attachment to American exceptionalism more than any fiscal perspective. For America to align its policies in these areas with those of other industrialized nations - all that the liberals are asking for - would reinforce that it is merely a country among countries, something that, for the Tea Partiers, is incompatible with the mythology on which our country is uniquely founded.
> And it's just not true that the TPers don't care about the federal debt.
> They're obsessed by it.
Again, I don't think that's the primary impetus behind them. I'm sure that Italy and Japan also have fiscal conservatives concerned with their nations' debts, but they don't launch the same kinds of mass movements.
> And a lot of the liberal anti-TPers are no fans of the American empire,
> even if some of the Dems they habitually vote for are.
>
If you want to define the empire restrictively enough (troops on the ground, in whichever country the liberals don't want troops on the ground this year), sure.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."