Blogs > Liberty and Power > More Reasons to Doubt Bob Barr

Apr 14, 2008

More Reasons to Doubt Bob Barr




Barr's comments shown below raise serious questions about the sincerity of his conversion to foreign policy non-interventionism. He did not make them five years ago but only last month. They seems to confirm and elaborate on even more troubling comments from last year. That was after he joined the LP:

While Washington's current national security worldview remains focused like a laser beam on Iraq and Afghanistan, fires smolder and burn elsewhere. Shifting at least a portion of that concern and those resources to South America, and especially to the Andean region that currently is near the boiling point, is critical to our security. There may not be weapons of mass destruction lurking in the jungles of Venezuela, Colombia or Ecuador (there weren't in Iraq either, of course), but arms are flowing into the area. Venezuela, for example, is buying billions of dollars worth of Russian military equipment. Leftist guerrillas and narco-terrorists remain firmly entrenched in the region, and evidence that other terrorist groups are using the area for problematic purposes is mounting.

Even if the possible loss of a significant portion of our imported oil requirement does not wake the United States from the somnambulant manner in which it views Latin America, perhaps the growing security threat in that area will —- hopefully before a major crisis jars us awake.



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Robert Higgs - 4/13/2008

For all his faults, Ron Paul was a far superior candidate than Barr though Barr is still a better choice that Wayne Root. It seems like the only available positive outcome is for the LP to run another nobody....unless Gary Johnson has a change of heart at this late date.


Anthony Gregory - 4/13/2008

But Barr is not just arguing what the federal government should do. He is seen as a spokesman for the libertarian philosophy. So when asked if he would vote to legalize heroin, his answer "no" is indeed a bad one.


Jule R. Herbert - 4/12/2008

Jeff: I agree with you: no one and certainly no state has the right to interfere with non-rights-violating behavior.

But I was making a point about federalism and decentralism: Strip the federal government of its rather obvious usurpation of power in the War on Drugs, and then one can better discuss the proper limits of the "police power" on the state level.

If even a few states "decriminalized" a number of recreational drugs, it would soon become clear that the world would not come to the end, that the fears of anti-drug warriers are unfounded, and that might even lead other states to follow suit. With the federal War on Drugs around those lessons cannot be learned.


Jeff Riggenbach - 4/12/2008

It's hard to make the case than any level of government has any business forbidding "dope-taking."

JR


Jule R. Herbert - 4/11/2008

I did not hear Barr's comments (and I carry no brief for him), but the fact is that the War on Drugs is a federally conceived and executed war. The local and state efforts are bought and paid for by the feds' inexhaustible checkbook.

Suppose Barr were to say: "I am running for President and I am opposed to the War on Drugs at the federal level. At the state level, I would leave it to the states to formulate their sumptuary laws, consistent with the provisions of their own constitutions."

In that case, I would be satisfied. It's hard to make the case that, say, the 14th Amendment, forces the States to legalize dope-taking.


David T. Beito - 4/11/2008

My already lukewarm feeling about Barr is getting colder.


Roderick T. Long - 4/11/2008

I just saw Bob Barr a few minutes ago on Hannity & appendage. Barr said he favoured abolishing drug laws at the federal level, but that he was against legalising drugs at the state level.

Now don't get me wrong, that would be way better than what we've got now. But it's not a position that an LP presidential candidate should be taking.