Liberty Maven

Over at Third Party Watch Cody Quirk published an article listing reasons to support the Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, equated him to Ron Paul, and more or less did so by attacking Libertarian Candidate Bob Barr. This drew the ire of Barr supporter Bradley Jansen who wrote a rather scathing rebuttal at The Nolan Chart. Jansen argues that Quirk should rely less on personal attacks and realize that Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin are more alike than they are different.

The bottom line is that Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin all agree more than they disagree. Any of them would be better, on the whole, than the status quo–or either of the two main major party contenders. All three would aim to cut spending drastically, eliminate the Federal Reserve, abolish the income tax, end our interventionist foreign policy and nation-building overseas, etc. There are, to be sure, policy issues that separate Barr and Baldwin…but Baldwin supporters would be well served hiding those differences if they want to claim that Baldwin shares the views of Dr. Paul (and Bob Barr).

Quirk ends with this argument that “Chuck Baldwin is a man that people outside of the constitutionalist mindset can support” and that Baldwin’s campaign is just getting started. I will add that Quirk’s own arguments and personal opinions show that Baldwin has won the support of at least one person “outside of the constitutionalist mindset.”

In my view, Jansen does a good job of refuting the arguments made by Quirk. No matter what side of this you are on, reading the arguments from both sides is certainly interesting.