Bob Barr on Republicans Who Have Learned To Stop Fearing Big Gov't, as Long as It Is Hunting Illegal Immigrants
Former Georgia GOP Rep. Bob Barr continues to, er, grow into a firebreathing libertarian. In this Wash Times col, Barr, now working for the Libertarian Party, rips into the Tom Tancredos, Ed Royces, and John "It's Time To Stop Tolerating Forced Abortions and Sexual Slavery" Doolittles of the world–all "small government" Republicans who want to make businesses enforce draconian immigration requirements.
Snippets:
It was not Big Government Liberals who rose up in arms to stop "greedy" financial institutions from offering [credit cards to people without Social Security numbers]. It was Small Government Republicans, like Colorado's Tom Tancredo and Californians Ed Royce and John Doolittle, who waxed indignant that banks engaged in such a free market activity as extending credit to someone who proved creditworthy but did not have a Social Security number….
Thus is being writ another chapter in the long and unfortunate march of the Republican Party to the pinnacle of Big Government; a march that figured prominently in the party's 2006 electoral losses but which continues seemingly unabated in the new, 110th Congress.
If such heretofore conservative stalwarts as Tom Tancredo and John Doolittle now champion increased government power to mold private businesses into their preferred image, is there really any hope left for the dwindling camp of Reagan Republicans who sincerely and consistently dislike government power?
Reason's Dave Weigel talks to Barr about his role in the LP and his oh-too-slow-moving desertion of the drug war (move it along, Bob, people are rotting in jails!).
Reason's special ish on immigration here.
