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July 27, 2008 at 12:27:27
Presidential Candidate Bob Barr on Failure of Conservative Values by Edwin Rutsch Page 1 of 3 page(s) |
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"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Abraham Lincoln At Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas, you can always tell when a VIP is in the room. Just look for the person with a deferential crowed gathered around them and follow the direction the cameras are pointed. While I feel uncomfortable standing so deferentially in anyone's presence, I have a job to do, and that's to find out how exactly conservative values have failed. So, when I saw a crowed gathered in the hallway, I moseyed on over with my video camera in hand and worked myself into the front of the crowed. There was Bob Barr, the Libertarian presidential candidate. After patiently waiting for the other interviewers to finish asking their questions, I asked Bob, "Have Conservative Values Failed?"
Bob Barr
Presidential Candidate Bob Barr on the Failure of Conservative Values
Bob Barr: I'm not sure. The term "conservative values" means so many different things to so many different people. To me, what has utterly failed in the traditional conservative movement is any understanding of or respect for true individual liberty and our constitutional system of government, which was designed expressly to provide protection for individual liberty.
We now have a government which calls itself conservative, yet believes it's okay to spy on American citizens within their own country without a court order. We now have an administration which calls itself conservative and supports conservative values that believes it's okay to detain a citizen or non-citizen in this country and never give them access to courts to determine under habeas corpus if they are being held properly.
So if in fact respect for individual liberty, respect for the Constitution are conservative values, we certainly don't have that in Washington nowadays.
Edwin: How about the Family Values?
Family values are part and parcel of the same notion of individual liberty. Where you have a Federal government, or in the cases of many of our state governments, state governments that want to tell individual citizens or the Federal government to override the decisions of the citizens.
For example, if the citizens of a particular state wish to legalize medicinal marijuana, or to change the definition of marriage in their state, why should the Federal government have any right, if in fact if it respects individual liberty and individual conservative values, have any power have any power to come in and override the position of the people of the state. Yet that's what we have in Washington. That's not conservatism. That's big government.
The value that is most important to me, is that which is most important, for example, to the great 20th Century philosopher Ayn Rand, and that is the value of individual privacy. As Ayn Rand said, the value of privacy, the notion of a person being freed from the interference of other people, is the essence of civilization.
And where you have a government that can come in and can invade your privacy, as Ayn Rand also said, you take away a person's freedom when you do that. That's the most important and fundamental of all values.
It's simply an understanding and a recognition that the notion of privacy in virtually everything you see and do government-involved-in nowadays -- whether it's surveillance cameras, whether it is wiretapping, whether it is trying to dictate to individuals or the states how one must behave, whether it's the government believing it can have access to our most personal financial and medical records without ever telling about it, or without showing a probable cause, it is under assault everywhere, and if we don't get a handle on it pretty soon, we'll lose the opportunity forever to do so.
So according to Bob Barr, the failure of traditional conservative movement is that it claims to support the values of privacy and liberty but does not deliverer and it in fact does the opposite. It takes away liberty and privacy. Isn't that the value of hypocrisy?
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another perspective
From the conservative republic of Dave by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Sunday, Jul 27, 2008 at 2:37:32 PM  (0+)
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take the poll
Is Bob Barr correct that conservative values have failed? Is Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr correct that traditional conservative values have failed? http://www.opednews.com/Poll/Is-Bob-Barr-correct-that-c-by-Edwin-Rutsch-080727-997.html by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Sunday, Jul 27, 2008 at 2:39:01 PM (0+)
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Neoconservative Values are Big-Government Values!
Neoconservatism is just another form of Big Government. It enlists Big Business by manipulating the flow of wealth to Big Business. Libertarian values have not failed mainly because they have not really been tried. They were tried for a few decades after the founding of our country and were a resounding success. The problem was that freedom only applied to white males over 21 (maybe 20% of the populetion) but even then there was prosperity and liberty far greater than ever before. Imagine if everyone were free! 100% rather than 20! It would have been 5 times as successful! Barr was not my first choice for a candidate, but he stands head, shoulders and insoles over the 2 "major" candidates. See my libertarian blog at http://www.alicelillieandher.blogspot.com by Alice Lillie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 72 comments [16 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Jul 27, 2008 at 7:41:03 PM (0+)
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Ayn Rand
If you've read Ayn Rand's books, they basically are a long drawn out argument that selfishness and greed will solve all our problems. While Barr's ideology leads to some good positions on current issues, at heart the ideology is rotten. by Bill Samuel (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 445 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:00:02 PM (0+)
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Interesting
that Barr feels the most important value is privacy. It is often pointed out by conservatives, particularly when battling "activist judges", that there is no explicit right to privacy in the constitution. Many conservatives say the most important value is the right to private property, which I think is way off the mark. by Maxwell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 409 comments [85 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jul 28, 2008 at 8:14:04 AM (0+)
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It's not conservatism
Bushism is the American version of what took power in places like Italy, Rumania and Germany before World War II. It also smacks of the Tojo regime in Japan. None of these were conservative, but all claimed to be: Mussolini was going to bring back the Roman Empire; Hitler promoted old German customs and even the old German gods. And notice how we now have HOMELAND Security, reminiscent of Vaterland in Germany. I wouldn't use the word fascist to describe them, or Nazi; Republicans don't run around in red shirts (their wives wear red dresses to special affairs, though). European conservatism shades off into the above more logically than American "conservatives." The values Bob Barr promotes are Liberal values (not socialist, not left wing) according to European and British history, values supported by an educated middle class. Conservatives in the rest of the world tend to be authoritarian, tend to expect institutions like Churches or governments to enforce custom-determined values. Abstract ideas of freedom and liberty are almost anathema: they promote revolution, democracy and license. In that latter sense, Bushism is more like European conservatism, shading off rather dangerously towards something like Mussolini or Peron (in Argentina). I agree that to an American "conservative" of the libertarian inclination, Barr sounds like much closer to their cup of tea. And he'd be a useful ally against the encroachments of big government whether pushed by Bushites/McCainites or by a more "liberal" government like Obama's possible administration. We liberals, who also value freedoms and don't want the government in our bedrooms, or peering over our shoulders, will welcome any allies like Bob Barr that we can get. by Douglas Smyth (27 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 90 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jul 28, 2008 at 9:36:58 PM (0+)
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