The Great Libertarian Debate
Matt Welch | May 21, 2008, 7:50am
Did you miss our discussion on Libertarian and libertarian politics last night? Fear not; the American Spectator's Philip Klein has a good write-up (including follow-ups with Bob Barr on war and Mike Gravel on health care). The Washington Post's Reliable Source provides a sartorial scorecard, plus follow-up quotes from Gravel and our own David Weigel. Robert Stacy McCain makes a good point about the upcoming LP convention, and Extreme Mortman exhumes some relevant YouTubing. We will have video up a bit later.
(More Noel St. John photos from the event here.)
Freedom Jury | May 22, 2008, 3:42am | #
Root was the only libertarian in this debate. Ruwart may be a libertarian, but she has no ability to access the major media (she didn't even show up to this free event). Barr and Gravel should not be considered to represent the LP. Neither of them can be trusted, they are business-as-usual politicians, and the reason the LP needed to be created in the first place. It is better for them to stay on the sidelines and endorse LP candidates for lower offices (plus, they can both atone for the damage they've done that way, as well as help undo it).
Gravel rants about global warming, and humanity being "cooked off the planet" in his youtube debate against Root (that Barr apparently couldn't make it to, apparently not believing it was that important). Gravel also endorses socialized medicine, and a universal sales tax. He is a somewhat tolerant liberal on (some) social issues. ...Big Deal, so is Kucinich.
Barr has been a tool of the socialist police state his entire life. He is an ex State prosecutor (that should raise major suspicions there, for anyone who knows anything about how modern courtrooms work), and openly states his opposition to jury nullification of law (the one real power that the people have) on his blog. Lysander Spooner would be rolling over in his grave to see Barr running as "Libertarian" (and yes, I know that's making a lot of assumptions). At this point, it's common knowledge that Barr still supports military drug war intervention in Colombia, and was the author of the homophobic "Defense of Marriage Act". Oh yes, and did I mention that he favored the prosecution in the Genarlow Wilson case? A case that was so anti-libertarian that the nationwide mainstream media covered it, from a libertarian perspective...
Barr or Gravel would be the death of the LP. Root will keep it alive and expand it. He's a good person.
Ruwart or anyone less than her would further marginalize the LP but at least wouldn't say anti-libertarian things.
Electoral politics only gets so good. Finally, the mainstream candidates are trying to take over the LP. That indicates they are taking a few steps back and starting to worry about us.
Let's not prove that we're easily destroyed before we've even left the starting line.
