In response to the grassroots teaparty movement, the left has put on an amusing display of denial.  Pelosi has described the protests as “astroturfing,” a tactic of faking grassroots movements much more common on the left, while other leftists have claimed they were organized by Fox News, or Dick Armey, or Tom Delay, or whatever other boogeyman they can think of.  The reality, as usual, is far different.

The tea parties were largely organized on social networking media, such as Facebook and in particular Twitter, where conservatives have strongly outpaced liberals.  The refusal of a Chicago tea party to allow RNC Chairman Michael Steele to speak (they wanted no politicians on stage), and the booing of a TARP supporting Republican at another should be enough to prove to any thinking individual that the movement has little to do with party politics.  Rather, each tea party was a phenomenon unto itself, and expressed the individual wishes of the local people involved.

But I think there’s a reason, beyond just their need to dismiss the movement, why the left just can’t wrap themselves around the idea that it is organic, instead of driven by the top down.  That reason has to do with why the left also can’t believe that we can be prosperous without a command economy.  They simply do not understand the idea of emergent behavoir, where millions of individual choices, without any one individual comprehending the entire big picture, can lead to significant and positive macro outcomes.  For the tea parties, this meant that no individual needed to plan to have 800+ protests on the same day, they simply had to organize or attend one in their backyard.  And what should really frighten the left, if they were courageous enough to confront the truth, is that so many wanted to organize and attend them in their backyards.  But their denial is our gain, as they certainly won’t see us coming.

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