Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Libertarians and the Tea Party

Is the Tea Party movement a direct result of the Libertarian movement? As we pondered this question, we also wanted to know when and where the two groups intersected.  We started with an informal survey.  We asked several people the following question: when do you think the Tea Party movement began?  They answered: when Rick Santelli ranted on the floor of the Merc in Chicago in February, 2009.

But our research into the history of the Tea Party took us back to 2004, to its first inklings as an organized force for rousing ordinary citizens to fight back against big government.  In that year, Libertarian David Koch founded Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit political advocacy group set up to educate the public on the principles of free markets.

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