"Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack."
Damon W. Root | July 23, 2008, 2:25pm
Those are the words of lefty journalist Robert Scheer, who comes out swinging against the candidate of change in a great rant over at
The Nation. A sample:
Both candidates supported the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has everything to do with violating the basic freedoms of our citizens and nothing to do with making them safer....
To use the failure of the President to pay attention to his daily-briefing warning of an impending attack as an excuse for shredding the fundamental rights of our citizens is appallingly illogical. Providing legal protection to the government and the telecommunications giants for unfettered spying on the people does not represent the change we desperately need.
And a quick history lesson, too:
Obama has one-upped McCain's bluff to win in Iraq by raising the prospect of an even more deadly quagmire in Afghanistan. If his goal was to remind us that Democrats have been more often the party of irrational wars than the Republicans, he has succeeded all too well.
Whereas Dwight Eisenhower refused to wage war against Vietnam and Cuba, it was John Kennedy, that charmer of change, who launched both of those military disasters. And then there was that crafty "progressive," Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, in order to defeat Barry Goldwater, the right-wing menace of his day, lied about a nonexistent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify escalating a war that killed almost 59,000 Americans and 3.4 million Indochinese.
Whole thing here.James Anderson Merritt | July 23, 2008, 6:07pm | #
Thank you Marcvs for the link. I was aware of what Barr had written in the Huffington Post, and have heard him say similar things in talking head interviews on TV. And it is nice to see that there actually is something on the topic posted on his website. But it is easy to lose track of blog postings. Barr's position on key issues (and the WOD is a key issue, because of its importance to libertarians and its centrality to the prior loss of liberty for all Americans, as a lead-in to the War on Terror) needs to have a somewhat more visible, easier to find location.
On the LP website, the party calls for an unequivocal End to Prohibition in its issues section on "Crime and Violence." Barr could do the same. He could also refer to the inefficacy of the FDA and the WOD, and the efficacy of medical marijuana, for instance, in his section on healthcare. In neither case would he be leading with the WOD as a banner issue, yet someone unfamiliar with Barr, who cared about the topic, would learn where he stood without too much digging being necessary. That's a key point: We voters shouldn't have to dig.
By the way, in terms of where Barr stands, the Huffington Post material still sends the message "drugs are bad," and "something must be done." The good news is that Barr advocates private sector action (albeit action that would be considered a horrendous violation of privacy if mandated by the government). The material quoted in the blog posting acknowledges neither 1) that many people with Schedule I drug "habits" are functional, productive members of society; nor that 2) cannabis, in particular, has valid medical uses and is of demonstrated help to many sick and dying people. Nor, for that matter, that there is a lot of harmful abuse of even properly, legally prescribed drugs. Not that Mr. Barr needed to be comprehensive in either his original article or the material excerpted in his blog, but I think he would do better to give a sense of balance to his take on it: touching on these other points, for example, would help do that.
Much of the "bi-partisan" support for the Drug War, to which Paul alluded above, has been ginned up by making the problems associated with drugs seem much more intractable than they are, and then blaming problems caused by prohibition and its enthusiastic enforcement on the drugs and drug users themselves. Barr's position seems to assume that we have a "big problem" with drugs that is inherent in drugs and drug use; his objection to the present Drug War seems to be that it simply is a failed approach. That's like saying you think we need to be in Iraq pursuing regime change, but the Surge -- or even the whole military strategy -- isn't working. If the War on Drugs -- entailing injuries, loss of life, and curtailmment of American liberty as it has -- were actually working, would Mr. Barr be against it? Or are drugs such an overarching scourge that Freedom from Drugs is a more important goal than the securing the other liberties guaranteed by our Constitution? These are questions that reasonable and concerned libertarians ask, and which even the material that Marcvs pointed us to does little to help answer. Again, Mr. Barr could make his position clear in the permanent "Issues" area of his website, and I certainly hope he does so before too much longer. November is coming.
Paul | July 23, 2008, 6:36pm | #
By the way, in terms of where Barr stands, the Huffington Post material still sends the message "drugs are bad," and "something must be done."
Some drugs are bad, and as such there are a lot of people in the mainstream who believe that "something must be done".
The question becomes: What must/should/can be done, and what drugs are bad? And once we determine which drugs are bad, what's the proper approach to society's tolerance toward them? When I see a woman staggering down the street with a 1000 yard stare, herion tracks up and down her arm who just literally wet her own pants, it's hard to argue that drugs aren't doing her a whole lot of good.
We can agree on many things, not necessarily in this order:
o Heroin addiction sucks.
o Prohibition clearly hasn't stopped her from using.
o Prohibition clearly didn't stop the drug from entering the country.
o A frank discussion and review of prohibited drugs, and reclassification thereof probably needs to take place.
o If we do keep some drugs prohibited, what's the proper approach to maintaining the prohibition. For instance, it's illegal for me to carry an 8" switch blade- but yet our entire national priority isn't kicking in peoples doors to eliminate the scourge of 8" switch blades. Compare and contrast.
o Several more I haven't thought or don't list for brevity.
Much of the "bi-partisan" support for the Drug War, to which Paul alluded above
There isn't "bi-partisan" support for the Drug war, there is bi-partisan support. It doesn't require scare quotes. Both major parties have embraced a prohibitionist stance that extends...waaait for it...way beyond even what good, card-carrying libertarians would describe as 'drugs'. Prohibition is popular among the electorate. What's your poison? Marijuana? LSD? Cigarettes? Trans-fats?
Bottled water? Someone, somewhere wants to ban it.
You may think that we still have a lot of liberty left, but this "single issue" is like a small fire in your living room.
1. I don't think we have a lot of liberty left. I think its waning quickly, and the most rapid percentage decline in said freedoms has come couched in "The War on Terror".
2. Sure, the single issue is like a small fire in my living room. A small fire while a dangerous stranger, called "War on Terror" rampages through my house, loaded with guns, secret listening devices, and a cabaal of corrupt spies and public officials threaten me, my family and my way of life. Meanwhile, libertarians are running around the house looking for a shot-glass of water with which they can put out the small fire.
