If you listen to Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton) on the campaign trail, you hear some scary things. They portray “too many Americans’ as one step away from economic and social disaster. They see as people badly in need of major assistance – their assistance.
John McCain, imperfect as he may be, sees a very different America. It’s the same country whose liberties he was willing to give his life for in Viet Nam. We may not agree with him on every issue, but we can’t disagree that a love for liberty is at the central core of this man’s being.
Even Bill Clinton has said of McCain: “He’s given everything he has to his country – except his life.” President Clinton has never spoken truer words.
In contrast to McCain, Obama essentially portrays America as something resembling Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” where “ignorant armies clash by night.” As “Lexington describes Obama’s world-view, America is “a coalition of groups that define themselves as victims of social and economic forces, and . . . [where] its leaders encourage people to feel helpless and aggrieved . . .”
If Obama becomes President, we would become a society of “victims,” all of us clamoring for the government to bail us out of our misery. That would be a disaster not only for libertarians, but for all Americans.
I hope all libertarians do the right thing: voting for John McCain. Also, ask your friends and family members to do the same thing. The future of liberty in this society depends on free people standing up and supporting a man who has devoted his entire life to defending American values and liberties. John McCain is the right man for our cause.
But there’s another side of the story.
The election of John McCain as President would effectively destroy the Republican Party as an avenue to achieve any reduction in the size, scope, or power of the state.
Whatever he might be, it is fairly clear that John McCain is no libertarian. He was the chief sponsor of a law that eviscerated the First Amendment in a political campaign contest. He supported the Patriot Act. His one saving grave is that, unlike George W. Bush, he recognizes that torture is not a legitimate tool in the War on Terror.
Beyond that, though, there’s no reason to believe that a McCain Presidency would be any better than a George W. Bush Presidency. And no reason to believe that John McCain has any greater respect for civil liberties.
No, I’m not going to vote for John McCain. And I’m not going to urge anyone else to vote for him.
And I’m not going to vote for Barack Obama either.
My vote won’t change the election, but, unlike 2000 and 2004, at least I won’t have to spend four years rationalizing to myself why I voted for someone who stands for everything I disagree with.
The HBO Miniseries John Adams has been excellent, and this dramatized exchange between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary Of The Treasury Alexander Hamilton highlights the great differences that were to define the first twenty years of the Republic:
Taxpayers: It’s almost April 15, and you know what that means. It means the Miami Dolphins already have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.
But it’s also time to file your federal tax return. Yes, this is a pesky chore, but remember that paying taxes is not a ”one-way street.” When you send your money to the government, the government, in return, provides you with vital services, such as not putting you in prison. The government also uses your money to pay for programs that benefit all Americans, such as the Catfish Genome Project.
See it’s not all bad. You’re not in prison and the government is making hybrid catfish.
When I learned that Bob Barr was going to be a guest on Hannity and Comes, I was excited to see a rare opportunity for a Libertarian candidate to explain the Libertarian philosophy to an audience which is largely unfamiliar with what the Libertarian Party is all about: personal liberty. To my dismay, Barr instead promoted federalism rather than individual liberty (federalism is important but is not the same thing as individual liberty). Both Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes raised some very good questions which Bob Barr failed to answer (it seemed to me that Alan Colmes, a loyal Democrat, had a better understanding of the Libertarian Party’s positions than Bob Barr did).
The area where Barr disappointed me more than anywhere else was his response to Hannity’s questions regarding the war on (some) drugs. Rather than answer the question directly, Barr chose to dance around the issue and ultimately answered that the drug issue should be left to the states. While surrendering the war on (some) drugs at the federal level would be a vast improvement over the current failed policy, simply surrendering on the federal level does not go nearly far enough (a great first step would be to release the P.O.W.’s – the non-violent drug offenders).
The following is the response I would have liked to hear from Congressman Barr to Hannity’s question: “What would your vote be? Would you vote to legalize heroin and crack?”
Sean, I think you misunderstand the Libertarian position on the war on drugs just as I did for most of my life. The underlying principle of the Libertarian Party is that the government, whether local, state, or federal, has no right to tell a person what to do with his life, liberty, or property provided that he does not violate the rights of life, liberty, or property of a non-consenting other person. It’s none of my business if my neighbor uses heroin or crack in the privacy of his own home so long as he does so without violating my rights or anyone else’s.
Furthermore, Sean, I would like to point out the three most important reasons why Libertarians are opposed to drug prohibition: it’s ineffective, it puts an unnecessary strain on the criminal justice system, and is dangerous because it breeds violent crime. It’s for these reasons that I would declare an end to the war on drugs as my first act as president by pardoning all non-violent drug offenders; all prisons would be free of non-violent drug offenders for the duration of my presidency.
I know that this format will not allow me to go into any detail on any of these reasons why the war on drugs is harmful to society at large, but I would encourage you and your viewers to visit the Libertarian Party website, the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition website, and Cato.org to get a more comprehensive understanding of these arguments [Liberty Papers readers can follow this link for a comprehensive explanation of these arguments].
This is the kind of answer I would expect from any person seeking the Libertarian Party nomination (up to and including the faux Libertarian Mike Gravel). Rather than clarifying the Libertarian position on the war on (some) drugs, Bob Barr unnecessarily made the issue more confusing to potential Libertarians and others unfamiliar with the Libertarian philosophy. Libertarians (both “small l” and “large L”) are also left to wonder: Where does Bob Barr really stand on the war on drugs?
America’s Third President was born 265 years ago today.
Since there isn’t anything to write about Jefferson that hasn’t already been said, it seems appropriate to let his words speak for themselves from the text of the two written documents that he was most proud of throughout his life.
[Sec. 1] Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
[Sec. 2] Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security
