Bob Barr sat down for a rather lengthy grilling from GQ magazine’s Wil S. Hilton. Hilton approached the interview with an obvious sarcastic bias and attacked Barr with some of his questions. They even argued a bit, but Barr held his own, as usual. Here is a particularly argumentative excerpt:
Why shouldn’t the government interfere in the market and rein in corporations?
Is that the job of the federal government? I would say absolutely not. The government is not there to guarantee that the market is going to operate in a certain way.
Isn’t the government there to do whatever the people want? Isn’t that the whole idea of a democracy?
In a pure democracy, yes. But we don’t have a pure democracy. We have certain principles on which the nation is founded. The basic philosophy—the reason the government was set up the way it is—is to keep the government out of those areas. In our system, it’s not the job of the federal government to do those things. It is the job of the government to ensure free commerce.
Do you actually believe free commerce will cap pollution and keep the water pure and the air clean?
It may or may not.
Don’t you think the public has a right to keep its water clean?
I wouldn’t equate public concern with the appropriate role of government. The public, by and large, would like government to do all sorts of things.
And this is a democracy, and the government should do what they want.
It’s not a democracy. We have certain principles. The government exists to provide very limited functions—for example, free commerce.
The government exists to do whatever people want it to do.
Part of the problem is that we no longer have a truly educated public. The Founding Fathers lived in a very different world. They lived in a world where people understood and cared about the written word. They had a much more educated citizenry.
The reason the “citizenry” was more educated was because the “citizenry” excluded everybody who wasn’t a white male landowner.
Abigail Adams was one of the brightest people around back then.
But she couldn’t vote, and neither could slaves, or anybody who didn’t own land.
But Abigail Adams still influenced public policy through her interchanges with her husband. Part of the problem today is that we don’t have an educated citizenry like that. The citizenry may clamor for the government to do all sorts of things. That does not provide an appropriate basis for the government to do it.
Who else is going to decide what the government should do, if not the citizenry?
We don’t live in a democracy! This was not intended to be a country where the citizenry decides what they want government to do! We have a structure of government that is based on principles, independent of the vagaries of public opinion.
I’m not sure that’s true at all. The citizens can elect representatives to do whatever they want. If the citizens want to take away their own right to free speech, they can do it.
They could.
They can make government come to their doors every morning with a newspaper and donuts if they want.
Well, we’re almost at that point.
And so it goes. One wonders if they would treat Obama and McCain to the same line of opinionated questions, sarcasm, and assumptions. Read the full interview here at GQ.
Ben Adler writes on Politico.com about the likely destination for Ron Paul supporters in the November election. In doing so he recaps Paul’s campaign and brings up the racist newsletters again. I guess he needed some filler for his article. Of course he has to use one of the most negative aspects of Paul’s campaign. He also erroneously reports that $5 million was raised in one day for a money bomb, when in fact more than $6 million was raised.
Overall the article concludes that Ron Paul supporters will be split amongst McCain, Barr, and Baldwin via quotes from Ron Paul volunteers and campaign staff.
“Unless McCain does make changes in his platform,” including abandoning his support for the Iraq War and renouncing deficit spending, “I don’t think [Paul supporters] will be voting for him,” said Hart, who hopes to attend the Republican Convention as a delegate for the state. “They will more likely be voting for the Constitution Party or Bob Barr.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of the disaffected Republicans would cast their vote for Bob Barr because he’s much more conservative than John McCain,” said Jeff Greenspan, Paul’s Nevada state coordinator.
Here is another good interview with Bob Barr on the Bloomberg Channel’s “Night Talk” show. The interviewer, Mike Schneider has interviewed Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano in the past few months. He always asks insightful questions and allows ample time for his guests to answer, which is unfortunately rare in the media these days.
Barr’s drug warrior past is discussed along with the Defense of Marriage Act, the Libertarian Party, the Iraq War, Iran policy, role of religion, white supremacist supporters, and big government spending. Ron Paul even makes an appearance in a clip from his previous interview. Watch the interview in 3 parts below.
Reason Magazine is reporting that after the Barr campaign noticed a white supremacist forum post showing support for Barr they responded with the following.
The Barr campaign is not going to be a vehicle for every fringe and hate group to promote itself. We do not want and will not accept the support of haters. Anyone with love in their heart for our country and for every resident of our country regardless of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation is welcome with open arms.
Tell the haters I said don’t let the door hit you on the backside on your way out!
One of the major criticisms of the Ron Paul campaign was that they did not reject similar support. I defended Ron Paul on his decision on that to many people, including here at Liberty Maven. The Barr campaign response on this gives his supporters the benefit of not having to defend him on it. They reject it immediately.
One of Ron Paul’s undoings was the newsletters that went out under his name, perceived to be full of racist rhetoric. That coupled with his denial to return a donation from Stormfronter Don Black could be viewed by some surface-dwellers as a supporting racism yesterday and today. The truth of course is that Ron Paul is a pure liberty minded individual. He will defend your right to say it, even if he vehemently disagrees with you. This kind of purity is respectful, but ultimately is a political campaign killer.
I applaud Ron Paul for his actions for purity.
I applaud Bob Barr’s actions today for doing the right thing.
A newly released audiotape by the Department of Defense of a December 12th, 2006 Luncheon taped Rumsfeld telling a group of military analysts that the American public needs another 9/11 Attack to wake up. Please listen here at dod.mil and read below, but decide for yourself please. The Huffington Post beat your author to the punch and released an article here as well.
To the clatter and din of dinner knives and forks, Rumsfeld also blathers on about attacking Iran, jokingly infers to a “stroke of lightning” (aka assassination) of Moqtada al-Sadr and that he would reward the killer with a bottle of champagne. Perhaps topping everything is a statement that the US will win the actual military fighting, but can’t win a War of Occupation against guerilla warfare in Iraq, etc., etc.
Judging by some of the heroic worshiping rhetoric found here and other pro-Paul areas of the media world one would get the impression that Ron Paul is perfection personified. Unfortunately he has flaws. Most are of the perfectly imperfect variety. Indeed, flaws are a matter of perception.
In an interview on a Pittsburgh radio station last night the host implied that being honest with the American people is a doomed campaign strategy. I’m not sure if there is a sadder hard truth than that. It is almost as if many Americans beg to be manipulated by our politicians. It is the public discourse equivalent of a wife asking her husband, “Does this dress make me look fat?”. Meanwhile the wife is five foot four and weighs 210 pounds. If Ron Paul were to answer he’d say, “No, your large body makes you look fat. Your clothes are totally irrelevant.” It’s hard to win an election with honesty like that.
With all the talk of groups during this election cycle in the media and by the candidates I found this Op/Ed piece from the Aspen Times intriguing. On any given day, we hear things like “Will Hillary get the hispanic vote?” or “Will McCain take independents from Obama?” All the talk is about people in groups.
While I think the article’s sentiment is dead right, he probably should have used “Angry American” instead of “Angry White Man”. I can’t disagree too much though. It certainly helped the article’s interest level.
It was a rather disheartening day for the supporters of true liberty yesterday. Ron Paul averaged about 3-6 percent in most of the states holding primaries. He did much better in states holding caucuses.
Caucuses seem more genuine to me. You are able to get your candidate’s message out through speaking about him to others. You are able to openly campaign for your candidate. You then vote. In a pimary you go into a booth and pick your candidate. If you haven’t done your research you may vote for something you don’t want. At least with a caucus the lesser known candidates have a fighting chance.
There are two things to learn from the exit polls yesterday related to the GOP vote. Most people don’t care about the issues, rather it is the character that matters most to them. Also, most don’t even know what issues they are voting for, whether they care about them or not. These two truths come from the exit polling of those voting for John McCain.
In New York, 66% of those valuing personal qualities over issues voted for McCain. Also in New York, McCain received 56% of the Anti-war vote. I humbly submit that these statistics suggest that some people in New York are idiots. John McCain said he would be in Iraq for 100 years, maybe more. He also said that “there’s gonna be more wars”. He makes George W. Bush look like Ron Paul when it comes to war. The exit polls show similar statistics in other states as well. You can look at the exit polling in New York at CNN.com.
On the plus side, after being treated as if he had already dropped out of the race by the media, Ron Paul did well in a few states. He finished 3rd in Utah, Alabama, Alaska, and North Dakota. He came in 2nd in Montana. He received double digit percentages in Montana, Alaska, Minnesota, and North Dakota. He also received more than 500,000 votes in total yesterday. That is quite a bit of liberty right there. Also, remember that 21 states still haven’t voted. This is nothing to sneeze at when considering he has been shunned by his own party, ignored and marginalized by the media, and had to deal with a media smear attack of racism.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people out there who have recognized the true cause of liberty. I sometimes roll my eyes when people call this “a movement”, but a movement it is. Some will fall off the bandwagon and become discouraged. Many will carry on and fight for many years to come. I hope to live many more years. When those years have passed me by, I pray I will look back on my life as being one of the fighters rather than the discouraged.
There’s another one scheduled for today, but it has a purpose beyond mere money-raising. As Rep. Paul has been gaining ground in the polls and primaries, opponents have revived old charges of racism based on newsletters written in his name back in 1992. The statements in the newsletters were pretty bad, but Paul didn’t write them and has apologized for them repeatedly.
Justin Raimondo published a very long and detailed article shooting down all of the recent smear attempts on Ron Paul from The New Republic article as well as CATO and Reason Magazine. He shows the “racist” quotes in context. For anyone questioning Ron Paul’s candidacy due to the smear attempt this article will bring you back in the fold.
Liberty Maven
