I hope Bob Barr gets the Libertarian Party presidential nomination this month. I hope he steals the right-wing wacko vote from under John McCain's nose. I hope he clears the way for a Democratic victory in November, and an end to the war.
But then, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to hope. I keep buying shirts at Old Navy, even though they shrink into weird shapes and the buttons crumble like aspirin. Why? Hope.
And I'm also a realist. We can't pin our national hopes on Bob Barr. He probably can't even close the deal with the Libertarians.
Why not? Are you saying a party built on fear of government can't embrace a candidate who's spent his public life in a prosecutor's office, Congress and the CIA?
You'd think that would be a problem, but no. Sometimes a Party has to bend. Look at the Republicans. They're settling for John McCain, even though he's not a racist.
Is it a hypocrisy thing? Because Bob Barr wrote the Defense of Marriage Act and he's been married three times?
Don't think of it as serial adultery. Think of it as defending marriage on multiple fronts.
Is it because he was a House manager of the Clinton impeachment, but he lied under oath about adultery during one of his own divorces?
It's not fair to say he lied. He used tortured legalisms to avoid telling the truth. And he didn't commit his immoral disgusting sex acts in the Oval Office of the People's House, either. He did them somewhere honorable, like a Days Inn.
I know -- it's about him being pro-life, but Larry Flynt turning up that canceled check for the abortion.
Libertarians aren't interested in the politics of personal destruction. And checking is a necessary evil. For now.
Then why can't he be the Libertarian nominee?
Because he's not a real libertarian. He's too vain to act that stupid. He'd like to -- because he's a bad person -- but he can't. You can tell, when you hear him trying to talk Libertarian on the campaign trail. He can't internalize the contradictions. The voices are in his head, but his heart isn't in it.
Give me a for instance.
Last month, Barr was speaking to the College Republicans at the College of New Jersey...
Sounds like a blast.
Can I talk?
Sorry.
He was explaining the Second Amendment to them, and how it meant the Framers wanted the maximum number of concealed weapons on college campuses at all times.
And the lowest number of women and black people.
Zero, I think. But that wasn't the only way America achieved maximum perfection in 1791. The perfect thing Bob wanted to talk about was the right to bear arms. It's absolute.
You can't regulate guns at all? Grenade launchers? Armor-piercing bullets? Chain guns? The atomic cannon?
If you're a Libertarian, every regulation is a slippery slope to Tyranny Town. Barr said:
"If we allow ourselves to be drawn into arguing just about guns and ammunition, it's very easy to lose that argument."
Because it's crazy.
That's what makes it a Libertarian position. If the government starts telling citizens they can't shoot each other with sawed-off shotguns, pretty soon it'll be telling them they can't shoot each other at all.
But you need a license to drive a car. If we can't restrict guns, at least we can license them, right?
Nope. According to The College of New Jersey student newspaper:
"Barr argued that while one needs a license to drive a car, there is no inherent (Constitutional) right to own a car."
Maybe because in 1791 there weren't any cars.
I didn't come here to defend Original Intent.
But that's not Original Intent. That's just nuts.
Oh, you're going to be sooo unhappy with the Roberts Court.
Okay, my head hurts. But I still don't see how any of this proves Bob Barr isn't a real libertarian.
Think about it. Bob Barr said we can regulate cars because they aren't in the Constitution, but we can't regulate guns, because they are. And if we start regulating guns in schools, the British will come back, in disguise as the kids at Virginia Tech, and Seung-Hui Cho will have to kill them one at a time, by hand, instead of all at once. Also, the upside -- freedom -- is more important than the downside -- dead children in piles.
I get it. But what did he say wrong? How isn't that a libertarian position?
Because he admitted the state can license cars.
Posted May 6, 2008 | 05:21 AM (EST)