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Bob Barr a Johnny-Come-Lately Flip-Flopping Non-Story

by Micah Tillman

According to the latest editorial at National Review Online.

The piece ends, "It will probably be Barr’s fate to be ignored, and those libertarians who care about the credibility of their cause should be glad of it."

Pointing insistently at something while telling everyone to ignore it is an interesting approach. I suppose they mean that, given the information they've just given us about Barr, we should begin to ignore him at the end of the editorial.

It is curious, however, that anyone cares enough about who the Libertarian Party's candidate is to write an editorial about how no one should care. Are we living in the Era of Paul, where libertarianism actually has the power to turn America's collective head (if there were such a thing)?

-MT


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Comments

We're seeing the fault line on the Right. We libertarian Republicans are usually big fans of National Review. Not this time. We're about as close as you can get on the issues to NR. But we're splitting from our conservative friends and supporting Barr.

NR offers no alternative for libertarian Republicans. McCain? Why? What has he done to reach out to libertarians?

And Barr's anti-War stances are way overplayed in the NR piece. I for one, have been quite impressed with the balanced approach Barr has taken, even when confronted by hardcore Pro-Terrorist/Anti-War Libertarians who have pressed him. He still continues to support our Troops.

NR is just scared of Republicans for Barr.

As a Green Party woman, and Green Party conservative, I'm delighted with Bob Barr's campaign. Hope he wins the Libertarian nomination, and then seeks the Green Party nomination also.

Bob Barr offers sensible common sense solutions. Counting the tax dollars/money at the pentagon. Installing an auditable accounting system, alone would save $500 to $900 Billion a year. Stop no bid uncontested contracts. Bring American troops home to american soil..after 50 years in Europe and Asia.

Go Bob!

Wow. Is that possible? Libertarians and Greens?

Perhaps I'm just making assumptions about the Green Party because of the way the word "green" is used by big-government types.

Off to educate myself . . . .

-MT

"The Green Party supports a universal, comprehensive, national single-payer health insurance program as the only solution to the current disastrous for-profit system."

-US Green Party Platform

"We call for a graduated supplemental income, or negative income tax, that would maintain all individual adult incomes above the poverty level, regardless of employment or marital status."

-US Green Party Platform

I'm not seeing libertarians getting too excited about this.

-MT

Barr, Gravel, and now there's even rumor that Tucker Carlson of MSNBC is interested in the LP nod.

Something is surely rotten in Denmark by the Potomac. Can another way be forged in these times of bought-and-sold politics?

# posted at by Robert Capozzi

"hardcore Pro-Terrorist?"

Come on, now.

# posted at by DASawyer

Jesse Ventura was asked to attend the Libertarian Party National Convention on May 22.


look for it.

# posted at by luke

Bob Barr is not a "pure libertarian," but with a pure statist like John McCain running as a Republican, the time for ideological purity is over.

Bob Barr (if he wins the nomination) will be the most credible candidate for President in many years. For the folks over at National Review, an interventionist foreign policy is the most important factor and they will ultimately support McCain strongly.

Fortunately, Bob Barr provides an option for those who believe in limited government.

# posted at by Paul Gessing

Is there such a thing as a true libertarian?

As I say again and again, it is a question of methods, not goals.

If anyone really wants to get it done, pay for my ticket and get me a room and food at the convention and have someone nominate me from the floor.

You won't get a Fair Tax, but you will get a tax system that does not require rank and file workers to file taxes. You won't get a total death tax repeal, but you will see it transformed into a tax on income for heirs from the estate when assets are either used or liquidated. For those pro-life libs, you won't get an abortion ban, but you will get tax credits that give the kind of gaurnanteed income that the Greens and the Libs may just support as a way to discourage abortion without sicking the state on doctors.

You won't get total self-management of savings, but will you will get a majority of social security assets in employee-ownership hands rather than the State's.

If any of you like that, and someone of our readers has delegate rights, put my name in nomination.

Is there such a thing as a true libertarian?

Depends on whether you think "libertarian" is a family-resemblance term (like "game," see Wittgenstein) or a label for an essence.