Last week, I told y’all about a mostly Democrat-oriented response to the mostly Republican-oriented Tea Party that is calling itself the Coffee Party. I was even invited on The Morning Drive with Frank Barnas on NewsTalk 105.9fm in Valdosta to discuss this movement.
After much discussion (admittedly mostly joking about it), the liberty movement is starting our own response to both of these movements, which I also mentioned on air Friday (jokingly even then):
The Beer Party.
Our aim is simple: To restore genuine Liberty in this land – and to have some fun while doing it.
The Tea Party is a bunch of pissed off people mostly mad because the OTHER guy gets to dictate what you will or will not do now. The Coffee Party is a bunch of people finally happy that THEY get to dictate what you will or will not do now – and ironically, their actions haven’t been very much different from the people they were so “oppressed” by.
We in the Beer Party just want to leave you the Hell alone and get government OUT of your daily life, since it was never meant to be there to begin with.
We’re a very young movement, with very old ideas (like, Founding Fathers old). But we do have a FB fan page, and we’re working on getting everything else set up, such as a website, twitter account, etc.
The Libertarian Party of Southwest Georgia Annual Convention will be just under 3 weeks from now, on March 27 at 3pm. I’m looking at possibly kicking off the area Beer Party at Harvest Moon after that meeting, probably around 5-6p.
Anyone and everyone is welcome at either event. Don’t like alcohol? We’re not forcing you to drink, and we won’t judge you if you don’t. Feel free to enjoy the beverage of your choice. No worries!
Here’s a couple of resources to get an idea of what we think (and remember, unlike those other two Parties, we actually genuinely encourage open debate around these ideas!):
From Beer Party USA
4 Principles
1. Beer is good.
2. Aggression is bad. You don’t have the right to hurt or threaten to hurt innocent people. You don’t have the right to send someone else to hurt or threaten to hurt innocent people.
3. I own myself. Regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, immigration status, religion or lack thereof, height, weight, and tolerance, all beer drinkers have the right to enjoy beer, live freely, trade freely, possess property, and pursue happiness. All of the same applies to wine, cider, and liquor drinkers as well as non-drinkers.
4. Taxation is theft. You do not have the right to demand money from me for enjoying beer. The same is true for working, living in my home, and exchanging ideas, goods, and services. It doesn’t matter how many people voted for you or what you’re going to use my money for, you still do not have this right.
20 Reasons
1. The market is the collective will of the people. Political regulation is the will of special interests.
2. Beer cartels are bad. Monopolies are worse.
3. Central planners can’t know what beer to produce. Beer producers study the demand for different styles of beer as they plan which varieties to produce. Without price signals, brewers might be brewing red ale when the people really want brown and wouldn’t know it. This applies to roads, schools, and whatever the government builds.
4. Everyone should have access to affordable, quality beer. Everyone should also have access to affordable foods to accompany said beers. State intervention forces producers out of the market allowing state-privileged corporations less or no competition and the ability to reduce quality, raise prices, or both. The same is true of health care.
5. When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. Laws that disarm victims and promote gun violence are dangerous for the poor. Genocides are often preceded by the disarming of the victims. Gun control is not birth control, it never works.
6. There’s no such thing as an illegal beer. Brewing is not a crime. There’s no such thing as an illegal human being. Living is not a crime. Immigration laws are regressive, oppressive, foolish, and quite often down right racist.
7. It’s not a war on drugs. It’s a war on people. Prohibition didn’t work in the twenties and it’s not working now.
8. Stop polluting my water, I need it for beer. The biggest polluter in America is the federal government, followed by big corporations whose monopolies and cartels could not exist in a free market.
9. If I don’t know you, then you don’t represent me.
10. I learned more drinking beer than in public school.
11. You don’t have the right to look through my things.
12. Invading a foreign land doesn’t bring its people beer. You don’t bring people liberty by pointing guns at them. Bring them beer. If they don’t want beer, then leave them alone.
13. You can’t own an idea. If you steal my beer, then you will have a problem. If you make a beer with a similar taste or name to my beer, then I have a problem.
14. Paper money is just that; paper, and not beer.
15. Who you have sex with is none of my business.
16. Adding more regulations is not “free” trade.
17. I don’t need your help to cross the street (for a beer). When it’s two in the morning and I for stop a red right, I can make a better decision about when nobody is coming than a light that turns on and off periodically.
18. A badge doesn’t give you the right to beat people. Neither serving nor protecting includes beating an unarmed woman to death or shooting an unarmed man in the back of the head.
19. If you try to steal my beer, I will try to obstruct you.
20. Beers vary in color, density, and flavor. The same is true of human beings.
[...] movement is about.” SWGAPolitics has been critical of the movement recently, even saying in their blog, “The Tea Party is a bunch of pissed off people mostly mad because the OTHER guy gets to dictate [...]