And Let's Not Forget Their True Goal

It isn't about marriage.

It isn't about the "special bond between soldiers."

It's about outlawing gays, PERIOD. No quotes- just go read, and go watch the video clip.

Remember, the Republican Party as a whole- not just this one guy on Hardball- wants Lawrence v. Texas overturned and anti-homosexuality laws restored throughout the United States. If they can't get that, they'll do anything and everything in their power to make the laws punish people for being gay- keep them out of schools, keep them out of uniform, prevent them from marrying or adopting.

Anyone who says this is not bigotry is a liar. End of discussion.

What Have I Got Against Obama?

Some of you coming into this blog cold may be confused- I was an Obama supporter, vanished for a year and a half, and came back an Obama basher. What gives?

Well, I wasn't totally silent in that year and a half- I just gave up doing a separate political blog and dumped everything on LiveJournal. And here below are links to the many and various reasons I have for thinking Barack Obama has turned his back on those who voted for him and does not deserve a second term as president. (For a while I even advocated his impeachment- because impeachment is the only constitutional punishment for a lawbreaking president- but I retracted that when some racist teabaggers opened up an impeachment website.)

Here's my reasons:

First, let's begin with one of my last pre-hiatus LYAN posts, where I called out then-candidate Senator Obama for voting for telcom immunity for illegal Presidential-ordered wiretaps. Despite that, I voted for Obama, on the grounds that he would restore a constitutional presidency and constitutional government after eight years of Bush/Cheney's "unitary executive."

So, what did we actually get? Well, Obama telegraphed his intent before he was even inaugurated when he said that Dubya was a nice guy who just made some bad policy decisions with the best of intentions. (Yes, because apparently torture is only "a bad choice.") He went on to nominate an attorney general who promised, as part of his nomination hearings, not to prosecute anyone for ordering torture or committing other war crimes. Obama's officials made it crystal clear that there would be no prosecutions so long as they could prevent it, going so far as to continue the Bush administration's cover-up policies and to squash attempted prosecutions in Spain and Great Britain through diplomatic threats. They even defend the use of torture in our courts and defend those who claimed that it isn't torture if it doesn't kill or maim you.

And finally, even when Obama issued his famous executive order banning the use of torture, he left a loophole that allows the CIA to continue torturing- with special permission from the President. This marks Obama, bluntly, as pro-torture. At the very least, he and his advisors refuse to rule out the use of torture in the future.

Torture, and protecting those who did it, was not the only way Obama betrayed his promises of change. Obama's Justice Department vigorously defended illegal warrantless wiretapping, White House secrecy, and the indefinite/permanent imprisonment of prisoners in Guantanamo and Bagram. This initially was with Bush-appointed lawyers, but Obama appointees were just as vigorous in defending warrantless wiretapping. He's even resisted court orders to release Guantanamo prisoners found completely innocent. He declared his intent to continue the use of presidential signing statements in order to ignore the laws passed by Congress. He protected the corrupt AIG executives whose trading of credit default swaps nearly destroyed the world economy. He sided with the big corporations on copyright extension and enforcement- that is, suing downloaders.

On a less obstruction-of-justice level, Obama pursued bipartisanship at the cost of his own agenda. He sabotaged his own stimulus package by allowing Congress to craft it... with his only contribution being a demand that tax cuts be included, over the objections of his own economists and advisors. He personally intervened to quash a Supreme Court hearing to overturn Don't Ask Don't Tell, while his Justice Department chose a rabid homophobe to write a defense of the Defense of Marriage Act that basically implies homosexuals have no civil rights worth respecting.

And in personal peeves, he cut hydrogen technology research funds in favor of horribly polluting and inefficient biofuels, he supported the weakest and worst of the five committee bills on health care reform, killed what could have been a workable 60-vote public-option Senate bill, backed Joe Lieberman's filibuster threat...

... and as you read yesterday he's about to effectively kill manned exploration of deep space.

All of THAT is why I'm angry at Barack Obama... and regret having voted for him.

Follow-Up: New Interview with Bob Barr

Bob Barr Speaks After Joining LP Leadership

Go, and read. Two things to note. First, Barr is continuing his defense of the Defense of Marriage Act by reframing it as a defense of liberty. View this as backpedaling- he may well be laying the groundwork here for a future reversal of position. Second, Barr utterly dodges the drug war issue, saying only that he will disagree with other Libertarians on some issues. View that as a line drawn: Bob Barr still supports drug prohibition, but is a savvy enough politician to know when to shut the hell up rather than injure himself to no good purpose.

Unfortunately Reason Magazine utterly failed to ask hard questions on doctrine- questions virtually every Libertarian is, or should be, asking. Here's my list:

1. In the past you were among the most aggressive drug warriors in Congress. Do you still uphold the principle that certain substances are so dangerous that no one should be allowed to use them under any circumstances?

2. Do you believe that the tactics used in the Drug War, such as asset forfeiture, no-knock raids, government-funded propaganda, and felony convictions for addicts comprise any danger to civil liberties? If so, is this danger outweighed by the danger of the substances used?

3. Alcohol Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, was regarded as a colossal failure that encouraged alcohol abuse and strengthened the power of organized crime. Why should drug prohibition not be regarded in the same light?

4. You say that the Defense of Marriage Act protects the right of state governments to define marriage. Are you aware that that act forbids marriage benefits to federal employees based on sexuality regardless of the laws in the state where they reside?

5. Should married people, regardless of sexual orientation, get special treatment not available to unmarried people?

6. While in Congress you objected to the practice of Wicca by members of our armed forces. Do you believe that followers of Wicca, or indeed non-Christians in general, are entitled to equal treatment and respect by the laws and government of the United States?

7. Do you intend to change the policy positions of the Libertarian Party on the issues of drug prohibition, religion, or sexuality?

For my part, I think these positions- although extremely disagreeable to me- are outweighed by Bob Barr's positions on everything else. On these points, if he holds to them, I'll oppose him tooth and nail... but he can hold these views and still say that government should be smaller and freedom greater in the whole. He can still call for accountability in government, reduction of government power and intrusiveness, freedom of speech, property rights, gun rights, privacy rights, lower and more just taxation, and other libertarian issues... and I have no doubt he will.

Barr still needs to answer these questions, though. Libertarians deserve the answers- and we need these answers if we're to settle the ongoing dispute on Bob Barr's role in this party.

I Wouldn't Want My Daughter to Marry Him, Though

The hot news among online Libertarians, of course, is former GOP Congressman from Georgia Bob Barr joins the Libertarian Party and is elected to the national Executive Committee.

For more coverage, check the AP story here, the discussion at Third Party Watch here, and the story at Reason Magazine Online here.

This is especially interesting because, only four years ago, the Libertarian Party took credit for throwing Bob Barr out of office, a move celebrated by some and regretted by others on grounds of freedom.

During his eight years in office, Bob Barr remained more or less true to the Contract with America that brought him and a host of other Republicans into Congress. He fought with consistency for smaller government, balanced budgets, and restraint on the power of government. However, he did not do this from the position that smaller government is always better. Purist Libertarians point out- quite loudly, in the discussion on the above links- that Barr was a sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act. He voted for the USA-PATRIOT Act. Worst of all, he was an aggressive zero-tolerance drug warrior, even defending a ban on hemp rope because it might contain trace amounts of THC... and it was for this sin that the LP targeted him in 2002 with attack ads that may, or may not, have cost him the Republican nomination in the 2002 Georgia primary.

The purists and anarchists in the party are screaming that the election of Bob Barr to the committee that runs the national party is a sign that the "Party of Principle" has abandoned its principles. To the contrary, I say- Bob Barr's advent to the Libertarian Party is the best news this party has had all year.

First, let's look at Barr's positions, as shown in this December 2003 interview. Bob Barr has openly come out against USA-PATRIOT, saying he voted the wrong way on that issue. He hasn't changed his mind openly about gay marriage yet, but he defends his vote there as a state's-rights issue- he supported the bill only so that states would not be forced to recognize gay marriage, not to outlaw it completely. That's disingenuous, considering the Defense of Marriage Act comes as close as any federal law can to doing just that, but at the least his justification shows he's paying attention to the Libertarian position on the issue. As for the Drug War, rumors fly that Barr is preparing to do a one hundred eighty degree turnaround on that issue... but nothing's solid as yet.

But so what if he doesn't?

The fact is that civil liberty activists like Bob Barr- who has worked quite often with the ACLU to fight government overreach- are precisely the kind of people we need to persuade if the Libertarian Party is to build its own political base.

According to a recent Zogby poll, most self-described libertarians don't vote for Libertarian Party candidates. Here's the number crunch: according to Zogby, fifteen percent of people who vote have a political belief set that classifies them as libertarians. In 2006, these people voted 59% for Republican candidates for Congress, 36% for Democrats, and only 5% for everyone else combined- Libertarian, Green, Constitution, whatever. This means that at most the Libertarian has, among its core base, only 5% support maximum- which leads to a support in the overall electorate of less than 1%. Sound familiar?

There are four reasons for this. First and foremost is the perception that Libertarians cannot win election. There's next to nothing we can do about that directly. Second, there are massive obstacles to Libertarians even making it to the ballot- which might well artificially shrink the numbers in that poll I just mentioned. There's not much we can do there either, except lobby for lowering ballot access restrictions. Third, too many of our nominees are outright nutjobs. Although we could use None of the Above much more frequently, laws don't allow us to turn away candidates outright in most places, so we can't do too much there either.

The fourth reason, however, we must do something about. A lot of people who agree with us as much as 80% of the time won't support us because they disagree VERY strongly with that last 20%. People who want lower taxes, smaller government, and greater freedom may well take the choke at auctioning off all public roads to the highest bidder, declaring unilateral free trade with all nations, abolishing all government social programs, endorsing secession, defending the individual's right to own nukes and anthrax, etc. etc. etc. We need these people's support to get anything at all done... but the purists in the party cling to ideals and principles above all and demand that moderate libertarians either "become educated to the truth" or else keep the hell out of the party.

Now let's look at the other two parties. The Republican Party tolerated people such as Lincoln Chaffee and Olympia Snowe because, without them, conservative and neo-conservative goals could not be achieved. Without pro-choice Republicans in certain areas, the Republican Party would have no power at all; with them, Republicans can make advancements on other issues, such as war powers, tax policy, and social issues. Likewise, the Democratic Party embraced errant son Joe Lieberman and former Republicans Jim Webb and Bob Casey for the same purpose. Although Lieberman is pro-war, and both Web and Casey anti-abortion, without them Democrats would be unable to block anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court or to advance Democratic issues such as a higher minimum wage.

Long story short: you don't have to agree with everything to get things done. In fact, if you insist on total agreement on everything, you get nothing done.

Bob Barr doesn't necessarily agree with everything the LP has stood for in the past. He doesn't have to. If he fights for greater freedom, if he works to get Libertarians elected, that's all we need. Barr has experience in WINNING election campaigns and firsthand knowledge of what a political party does in support of its candidates. He'll make a very good Executive Committee member- and an even better public fact than we've had in the past.

And if we want to expand our political base from less than one percent to fifteen percent- and more, if we want to elect people- we need to moderate our positions. We need a platform that doesn't call for anarchist utopia. We need concrete proposals that strengthen liberty without bringing about chaos and panic. Finally, we need spokespersons who focus on practical solutions to popular issues, rather than people trying to convert people to the religion of anarchocapitalism.

Bob Barr is such a person. He almost certainly wouldn't win an election for us as a candidate- even if he were running, which he says he isn't. His expertise as a politician, a legislator, and a public speaker will be invaluable to getting other candidates elected, though. This is a vital opportunity for us... and no one dedicated to getting Libertarians elected should throw it away by either bolting the party or driving Bob away.