The Barr Necessities.....

I see they're having another Presidential debate between the Republican and Democratic candidates this Wednesday. I doubt if I watch it. I heard enough in the first two debates to convince me that I had made the right decision when I decided that I couldn't support either one of them.

They certainly have a difference in style, and they claim to have a difference in agendas, but I have also heard enough and seen enough to realize that whether John McCain or Barack Obama is elected, upon leaving office, either one will leave the government more costly and more intrusive than when they took office.

Apparently that doesn't bother a lot of people. But it bothers me. And it bothers Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States of America. Bob Barr favors a Constitutionally limited government. Those Constitutional limits will provide all of the necessary government that we need, while ending most of the outrageous spending and meddlesome interference in our private lives.

Some people contend that voting for Bob Barr amounts to a wasted vote. I'm a firm believer that voting for something you don't want is really a wasted vote.

I don't want higher taxes, or a higher federal debt, or more government in my life.

So I'm not going to vote for them.

If you would like to vote for less government in your life, check out Bob Barr at www.BobBarr2008.com

What a waste....

I just finished spending a week of evenings at our county fair. I’m not sure how long a person can survive on Lemon Shake-Ups and Elephant Ears, but know from experience you can make it at least 7 days. I’m sure there are people who believe that spending three dollars for some lemon seeds and sugar in a glass of water, or four dollars for an ounce of fried dough dragged through a bowl of cinnamon and sugar might be wasteful, but it sounded like a good idea at the time, and it did sustain me for a week. And if I was wasting money, at least it was my own.

While I have a lot of family and friends that are active in 4-H, my main reason for attending the fair every night was to work the booth that was promoting our local, state and national Libertarian candidates. (I just happen to be one myself.) Whenever we set up a booth, we always manage to attract a diverse crowd with diverse opinions. Some friendly, some not so friendly, but usually interesting and always welcome.

This year we found a lot more interest in the national ticket than usual, Libertarian Presidential Bob Barr in particular.
Apparently a lot of voters are dissatisfied with the choices the other two parties are offering. But we also heard a lot of the same concerns voters have expressed before. Inevitably, at every event, at least one person tells us that they like a lot of our ideas, but they feel that voting Libertarian would be wasting their vote.

Now admittedly, Libertarians are seldom favored to win, but voting shouldn’t be like betting on a horse race, and if choosing the winning candidate was the only criteria for deciding whether or not your vote was wasted, then about half of the votes are wasted in every election.

I became convinced several years ago that the only way to waste a vote is to use it voting for something that you don’t want. Say, for instance, that you want lower taxes, but you vote for a person or party that continues to raise and create new taxes. That is a wasted vote. Or say, for instance, that you want government that isn’t quite so intrusive in your private life, but you vote for a person or party that continues to expand government. That is a wasted vote.

If you waste three or four dollars on some less than healthy fair food, you can probably recover by purchasing one less gallon of gas and walking 15 or 20 miles. Wasted votes have a longer lasting effect, and they’re a little harder to get over.

But we can get over it. We just need to stop wasting our votes voting for something we don’t want. And this November would be a good time to start.

Death by a thousand cuts...

Well, they're at it again. Or still. The president and the congress are again thumbing their collective noses at the 4th amendment guarantees of protection against unreasonable searches. If that disgusts you like it does Libertarians, you might want to consider voting against it this fall.



Here's the press release from the Barr for President campaign:

"June 19, 2008 6:33 pm EST

Atlanta, GA -- “In asserting his power to conduct warrantless searches of Americans, President George W. Bush has expressed his clear contempt for the Fourth Amendment. So has Sen. John McCain, despite his reputation as a supposed maverick,” says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president. Now the Democratic-led Congress is preparing to approve a so-called compromise that gives the Bush administration almost everything it wants in order to expand dramatically the power of the federal government to surveil American citizens without court orders. “America desperately needs leaders who will stand up for the Bill of Rights,” observes Barr, “not those who flaunt its vital and time-honored protections.”

The president already has the power to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists. The 30-year old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides for court oversight, along with the requirement that the government get a warrant. “The court has virtually never rejected a request,” notes Barr. “Changes in technology require updating the law, not gutting it.”

However, the bill being advanced by the Democratic leadership “would allow the government to listen to millions of phone calls by Americans with neither an individualized warrant nor an assessment of probable cause,” he adds. Although the law would offer some protection when a particular American was expressly targeted, even then “the proposed rules fall short of what the Fourth Amendment mandates.”

Moreover, the bill would immunize telephone companies from wrong-doing, protecting them against law suits even when the firms violated the law by helping the government conduct warrantless searches. Past cases would simply be dismissed. “Conservatives once said, ‘you do the crime, you do the time,’ but no longer,” observes Barr. Now virtually the entire Republican Party is prepared to sacrifice the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans in favor of federal government power.

And the Democratic leadership is ready to do the same. Congressional Democrats privately say that they don’t want to take the political risk of opposing the president. “But the individual liberty of Americans is not a political football, something to be tossed about when an election looms,” insists Barr. “It is the constitutional duty of lawmakers of both parties to defend the Constitution, even when they believe doing so might be politically inconvenient.”

Advocates of abandoning the Constitution warn us that we live in dangerous times. But Americans have long lived in dangerous times. “That didn’t stop the nation’s founders from creating a Constitution that secured individual liberty and limited government,” notes Barr. “It shouldn’t stop us from following the Constitution today.”

Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA.

Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom."

Something refreshing from the Barr....

I've made some mistakes in my life. I'd be the second to admit that. My wife would be the first. The worst thing about making mistakes is the problems that accompany them. The best thing about making mistakes is that, if you live through them, you have the chance to learn not to make them again. That's a good thing, I think.

I caught a clip of Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr on the Colbert Report tonight. As expected, Colbert made some humorous straw man suggestions about Libertarians,(e.g., equating opposing the FDA to drinking lead based paint) and then moved on to some more serious questions about Mr.Barr's past votes on some less than libertarian bills in Congress concerning the Patriot Act and the Drug War.

It was refreshing to hear a politician say that some of the things he had supported weren't right, and that we need to change directions. That's probably as close as we're going to come to hearing a politician say that he made a mistake, and I doubt that we'll hear it from anybody else.

But wouldn't it be nice to hear the Republicans (and Democrats) admit that their aggressive foreign policy is bankrupting our nation, and that their oppressive domestic policies have cost us more freedom than the nations we fight with?

How much better off would we be if the Democrats (and Republicans) would admit that the social and entitlement programs they have created to provide all things for all people are unsustainable, even if we count on our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to pay for them?

Wouldn't it be refreshing if they all would admit that they had made mistakes, but were now willing to make amends?

Wouldn't it be nice if a few of them would follow Bob Barr's lead?

Wouldn't that be refreshing?

Raising the Barr...

I just got home from my third Libertarian Party National Convention. In some respects, it was a lot like the first two. This one was in Denver. They always hold them in some big city where the posted speed limit is apparently merely a suggested minimum.

It's something you can count on at every convention. Just like you can count on one of our more colorful members from California to show up in what might be described as "unconventional" attire. This year for the first session it was pirate attire, followed by the ever popular Statue of Liberty, and then a couple of mystery outfits that I was unable to identify. He always manages to maneuver himself to be in front of the C-SPAN cameras, I guess in hopes of lending his own version of credibility to the party. This years costumes were at least less revealing than the mini-skirt that was worn a few years ago, a thinly veiled reference, I suspect, that the LP is simply too small to hide its nuts.

There was the usual mind-numbing by-law and platform discussion and rewriting, pitting the purists against the pragmatists, and the ever present argument over whether the LP should simply be working towards reducing the cost and intrusiveness of government, or spending its energy opposing the cult of the omnipotent state.

Also as usual, the attendees were treated to a long list of Libertarian speakers, some famous, and some not so famous. I was especially impressed by one of the not so famous, a certain Libertarian judge from Hagerstown, Susan Bell. When the convention committee first asked her to speak, she said she was inclined to decline. I'm glad I was able to convince her to accept the invitation. So was the audience. So was she, I think.

One thing that did happen at this convention, that usually doesn't happen, is that the delegates nominated a presidential candidate that people outside of libertarian circles have actually heard of. His name is Bob Barr. He was a United States Representative from Georgia. That was when he was a Republican. When he became disenchanted with the GOP, he joined the Libertarians. Like most everybody that was something else before they became a Libertarian, Barr brings some baggage from his past. He wasn't always accepting of individual rights.

A number of Libertarians are unwilling to forgive Barr of his past transgressions, and some question the validity of his transformation. Not me. Maybe because I used to be a Republican. I used to believe that since drug abuse is bad, the government's war on drugs must be good. I used to believe that government had the right to license marriage. I used to believe that government had the right to take something from someone and give it to someone else. I used to believe that government had rights. Now, not so much.

So I'm willing to give Mr. Barr the benefit of the doubt. Even though he may not be as far in his libertarian journey as some of the other candidates in Denver, and even though he may never get as far in his libertarian journey as some of the other candidates. Along with some past baggage, he also brings the ability to attract some badly needed press to a very worthy cause, and as I mentioned in this article before the convention, all of that could go a long way toward helping local and state candidates in their efforts to reduce government, and in opposing the cult of the omnipotent state.