Like this is a bad thing?

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman says that Tea Partiers are trying to set into motion a slow-motion secession (quoted in Media Matters). Speaking to Chris Matthews on MS-NBC, his exact words were:

What's going on here, as I see it, is a kind of slow motion secession. This is- this is an ending of the social compact. This is two gen- three generations worth of agreement about Social Security, about Medicare, about the role of the federal government. The Tea Party people are saying, we want to secede from that society.

And the reason for this, is that those entitlements are no longer affordable. The people know it, even if the élites do not.

We have two cultures in the United States: a libertarian free-enterprise culture, and a socialist culture. I see no reason why those of us who are libertarians should be forced to live in a socialist state.

So, as I asked above, "Like it's a bad thing?"