In Review: Give Us Liberty

Photo Credit: Official Picture

A Tea Party Manifesto

In 2008, grassroots networks across America thrust Barack Obama ahead in the polls and secured his election as the first black president in American history. In 2009 the American grassroot network cam alive again, but this time they railed against the very democratic agenda they had previously propelled into power. With massive protests such as the 9/12 March in Washington D.C. and the media frenzy that escalated the healthcare town hall debacles, America ha awoken from its long slumber, and America was fighting back. In the book Give us Liberty by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe attempt to capture the history and energy of the Tea Party Movement and try to illustrate for the readers the necessity of this movement and the true power that we as voters and citizens truly hold.


All in Vain

Let me be blunt, I have an issue with this book. The whole idea expressed throughout this entire book is that the Tea Party is not one, interconnected institution, that it is not in fact a political party of its own, and that it doesn not intend to be a counter to Republicans and Democrats. The main idea of this book is that the Tea Party is a community based, individually run organization that works through word of mouth and online organization. Yet here is the thing, in this book Dick Armey seems to only focus on his own involvement within this group. He talks about individuals form across the nation but he leaves the reader with no doubt that they could not have accomplished what they did on the national level without the help and coordination provided by Armey and his group Freedomworks. To me this is kid of ridiculous, and it truly seems to just be an attempt to rubber stamp his face on the movement in a vain attempt to become its head.

Now this is not to say that this book does not have some redeeming qualities, because in fact it does. Throughout the book, both authors highlight the importance of sound fiscal policies and are loud supporters of helping get new blood and ideas into government positions. They even highlight a the plank platform that their chosen candidates should agree with. Some of these include: protecting the constitution, balancing the budget, and repealing the health care bill. However even here not is all as it seems, they demand random ridiculous positions be taken such as reforming the tax code so that it is not longer than 4,543 words (the length of the original constitution). Now I am all for reforming the tax code, but the limit on the number of words seems outlandish especially in today's real world terms. I can not understand how people who seem to have a sound footing on such important national discussions, would also carry these weird stipulations. In the end I think again that it is actually not their beliefs and that this is more probably a Freedomworks invention and just another misguided step in the book.

It just seems to me that with every positive step this book and the author tries to take in establishing the Tea Party as a movement separate and different from anything else, they take another step back in trying to squeeze the Tea Party agenda into something Dick Armey and Freedomworks can control.

Perhaps the absolute best portion of this book is the Appendix which is a compilation of different essays about how to run your own grassroots organization. The appendix covers issues ranging from structuring your organization to helping fund your events. But then again at the end, one thing remains abundantly clear, anyone using this method is assumed to be organizing under the Freedomworks agenda and umbrella. In otherwords, I'm not too happy.

The Review

Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe's book, Give Us Liberty attempts to establish the Tea Party as an independently minded group of organizations that are not beholden to anybody... except Dick Armey and Freedomworks. I still believe that the Tea Party is a good organization and offers new blood and ideas into American politics. However I am disenchanted with this book and more importantly its author. The In Review rating for this book is a 2 out of 5. It has good ideas and even a good structure, but it fails at its core idea of establishing the independence of the Tea Party by trying to place it under the umbrella of Freedomworks.

Later,
Cody