I’m surprised anyone actually found my last blog posting and obviously a few of you did including at least one gentleman with a very different point of view. This posting is more observational and less personal and judgemental than the one I wrote the other day. I will say that Steve Kubby is now a personal hero of mine and I’m sorry he is not Bob Barr’s running mate. He is man of great courage and conviction. I guess I should have known that already but I continue to be impressed by this fine gentleman. He truly is a warrior for liberty and I wish him the very best.
The last few days I have seen a great deal of discontent with the results of the convention and, most pointedly, the nomination of Bob Barr. I’m not just talking about the likes of Christine Smith (who I always kind of liked) and her decision to leave the party but about personal friends who feel betrayed by what took place. Many of these people were enthusiastic supporters of the Ron Paul Revolution and clearly do not see Bob Barr as someone who will carry forward his message. I think much of that has to do with how personal the commitment to Ron Paul is and the sense that it is as much the man as the message that is at play. Whatever one’s feelings about Ron Paul’s message, there have been very few criticisms (though some) of his integrity and political courage. One of his greatest assets as a candidate was that he both talked the talk and walked the walk. Even though Bob Barr may agree with 90% of what Ron Paul says, his record is one that makes one shudder. As I mentioned the other day, not only was he wrong but he was wrong on some of the “hot button” issues for most libertarians. If nothing else, we can all usually agree that the drug war is insane, that legislation like the DOMA is the worst sort of meddling by the federal government and that the Patriot Act is a gross violation of everything the Constitution is supposed to represent. And yet Congressman Barr was closely involved in each of these very offensive abuses of government power and that is awfully hard for a lot of people to swallow.
It is certainly a bit odd to listen to Libertarians talking about voting for the “lesser evil” in this campaign and I’ve heard quite a bit of that lately. I suspect many will simply stay home but others may write in Dr. Paul or vote for Chuck Baldwin or even Obama. I have to say that I am very uncomfortable with the Constitution party folks even though I believe some of them are about 90% right on the issues. That said, I can understand the appeal. Part of Paul’s appeal was the anti-establishment tone to much of his message that one might even call populism: Anti-Fed, Anti-UN, Anti-NAFTA, Anti-War. There is a convergence between the left and right on these issues and you can see that in the fact that many of Paul’s supporters also had a soft spot for Dennis Kucinich who shared most of those populist views.
That, to me, is part of the appeal of a renewed Constitutionalism. It has the potential to appeal to a broad coalition of the left, right and center. Our increasingly centralized government leaves little room for dissent and diversity anywhere on the political spectrum. I may disagree with someone on the role of government in general but I may be able to form a coalition with them if we can both agree that, whatever that role, it should be defined at the state and local level and that the federal government should be empowered with only a small set of enumerated powers. In a nation as diverse as ours, the idea that “one size fits all” will only create a more oppressive nation-state and lead to a more and more bitter brand of political discourse.
That being the case, there are still many libertarians who would like to fight it out on national stage with Democrats and Republicans in our “winner-take-all” electoral system. They imagine that one day they can convert a majority of people to their point of view and then we can “impose libertarianism” on the nation as a whole. I have to say that I can’t see that ever coming to pass, at least not in my lifetime. I think many of the apolitical libertarians out there may have a more realistic vision of what it will take to achieve liberty than these well-meaning but misguided folks.
I’ll close for now. More thoughts as they occur to me. Your comments (even negative) are welcome.
