Posted on 08/23/2002 9:16:01 AM PDT by My2Cents
Barr Exam
Why I'll miss the "worst drug warrior in Congress"
By Jacob Sullum
The Libertarian Party is celebrating the defeat of U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, whom it calls the "worst Drug Warrior in Congress." Although I spend much of my time criticizing the war on drugs, I do not share the L.P.'s enthusiasm.
There's no question that Barr, who recently lost his bid for the Republican nomination to represent Georgia's newly redrawn 7th District, is an enthusiastic prohibitionist. The four-term congressman has bucked public opinion by doggedly opposing the medical use of marijuana. He even supports a ban on hemp products because they sometimes contain trace amounts of THC--too little to get anyone high, but enough to offend Barr's sensibilities.
Yet Barr is also, paradoxically, a vocal champion of privacy and civil liberties. The tragedy of his career is that he does not recognize how the war on drugs undermines those values.
Despite his reputation as a rabid right-winger (based mainly on his early support for impeaching President Clinton), Barr is probably a more consistent defender of individual rights than the typical ACLU member. For one thing, unlike many self-proclaimed civil libertarians, he takes the Second Amendment seriously.
As a freshman, Barr led the fight to repeal the federal ban on so-called assault weapons, an arbitrary abridgment of the right to keep and bear arms that targets guns based on their militaristic appearance. He also introduced an amendment limiting the scope of the Gun-Free School Zones Act to conduct that was already illegal under state or local law.
Such efforts did not have broad support from the general public or Barr's fellow Republicans. His battles with gun controllers reflected his readiness to criticize the government for overstepping its proper bounds, even when party leaders might have preferred that he keep his mouth shut.
Barr, a former federal prosecutor, likewise has not hesitated to challenge law enforcement agencies. He emerged as a relentless inquisitor during the 1995 congressional investigation of the federal government's disastrous confrontation with the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas.
Barr has repeatedly defended the Fourth Amendment against encroachments by law enforcement officials seeking broader powers. He has tried to rein in the Justice Department's monitoring of Internet traffic and spoken out against the spread of police surveillance cameras.
"Where will the line be drawn?" Barr asked in July 2001. "Can it be drawn? Has government gained so much power to snoop that we have already lost the ability to fight it?"
Barr has also shown a commitment to due process. Last year he said the use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings "violates basic principles of fundamental fairness" and is "blatantly unconstitutional," noting that "a cornerstone of our judicial system is the right of individuals to view and respond to evidence against them."
Refreshing as such views were prior to September 11, Barr's continued defense of civil liberties since then has set him apart from all but a few of his colleagues in Congress. "Let us not rush into a vast expansion of government power in a misguided attempt to protect freedom," he warned less than a week after the attacks. "In doing so, we will inevitably erode the very freedoms we seek to protect."
Barr continues to oppose a national ID card, which he sees as part of "a concerted effort by government to dig deeper and deeper into the lives of lawful Americans." He expressed reservations about President Bush's order authorizing military tribunals for accused terrorists, although he decided, once the details were revealed, that the administration had struck "an appropriate balance between constitutional safeguards and national security."
Similarly, Barr ultimately voted for the anti-terrorism package known as the USA PATRIOT Act, saying "we were able to eliminate or severely limit the most egregious violations of Americans' civil liberties that were contained in the original proposal." Later he seemed to regret the vote, lamenting that "power taken by the government is rarely returned."
Although Barr will never admit it, that observation applies to the war on drugs as well as the war on terrorism. During the last few decades the leading threat to the Fourth Amendment has been the effort to separate illegal intoxicants from people who want them.
In one drug case after another, the Supreme Court has whittled away at protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. By continuing to support the crusade against unauthorized mental states even while proclaiming his commitment to privacy, Bob Barr has been his own worst enemy.
Once again, another libertarian basher proves that they are single-issue posters. "Libertarian bashing" to many simply means calling libertarians drug users, even when they talk of government powers and not drugs - let alone actually use or advocate use of drugs.
No. If we take Sullum at his word, then the LP is celebrating Barr's loss because he was a drug warrior. Sullum points out that Libertarians would do much better to recognize Barr's fine record on other Libertarian concerns.
The fact that this one issue defines their response is reason enough to believe that legalizing drugs is the only issue they really care about -- which is both sad and stupid.
Well, I'm not a Libertarian, and I say 'let me smoke my weed'. But it's not just about weed, I say (to government) 'Leave me the hell alone!'
You die hard conservatives are under the illusion that these politicans actually care about you. Wake up! They are only there to serve their own interests, not yours. They only pretend to listen when they're up for reelection, and then it's the same old noise.
It's time for a change.
http://www.constitutionparty.org/
Yep -- they set up various spooky special effects at Barr's old house. As a result, since the Scooby Gang wasn't around to expose the trick, he was scared into moving so far away that he landed in a whole different district.
As for Barr, he can't tear down the Constitution on one hand, and defend it on the other. To weaken it in any case is to weaken it in all cases.
Oh, come off it, wolfgang. Nobody would be silly enough to give the LP that kind of credit.
The fact that you've interpreted my "no" as a "yes," and also seem to have missed the point of the article, and of both replies, suggests that you have difficulty with reading for comprehension.
That being the case, I probably would have voted for Barr, even though his willingness to use government force to impotently attempt to inderdict victimless crimes disturbs me. It also disturbs me that a conservative (Barr), who should understand property rights are the foundation of western civilization, is himself undisturbed by the WODs attack on property rights. From the obvious asset forfeiture violations applied to the uncharged innocent caught with cash, to the more fundamental right to control over one's body, including self-defense and self-medication, for whatever purpose.
BTW, I'm a right to life libertarian as well, but I also regard government force as ill-suited to detect, interdict, and repress that immoral behavior. Some sins are not crimes, and some crimes are not sins, and neither the social engineers on the right or the left will ever succeed in making government messianic. In a society where family and community ties are starined or never developed, the tool of shunning has been neutered. Government force to constrain anti-social behavior is a poor substitute for strong social ties and constraints and totally inappropriate and inept for victimless, consentual, and otherwise stealthy behaviors. Barr's support for privacy is laughable when to successfully implement the WOD requires an invasive state to be even partially effective.
I'm genuinely sorry to see Barr go, I've always enjoyed his outspokenness even on the issues I disagree with him on. But with regard to the WOD, he is being inconsistent and dogmaticly hypocritical with respect to fundamental conservative, as well as libertarian principles.
And yet, the article puts the lie to that.
Certtainly as one who has posted of the faults of both the Libertarian Party and dogmatic Libertarian Ideology, I am an odd one to take issue with you. I do so, in part, because there are many small "l" libertarians who I find common ground with on this forum and elsewhere. We lay some of our differences aside, to work on the bigger issues on which we can agree.
The author of the article, from Reason Magazine, doesn't bill himself as exclusively libertarian, although I have little doubt that is where he typically finds the most agreement. The bigger point is that he is doing, from his side, just what I have. He is making common cause. He is chastising first the LP Party's thoughtless promotion of Barr's defeat, long before his aside at the end of how Barr could have been more freedom-consistant in his opinion.
Thus, this article is proving the exact opposite of what you claim. It is showing small "l" libertarians do look at the bigger issues. They do measure the whole of a man's performance. And they can chasten each other and are not a broad band of lock-step iconoclasts as many would like to paint them.
They have some positions and some ways of thinking that I always comment against where appropriate. But they are not the source of our Republic's troubles. They are our Countrymen and allies if we are thoughtful enough to see it. I'm glad you found the article, however, and thinks for posting it.
Barr the congressman from the 7th district moved to the 7th district, Linder the congressman from the 11th district moved to the 7th district. Hillary44 delieved a message.
That's a lie. And a whopper of one, too.
Blocking funds in an attempt stop the counting of votes
is the mark of an tin-pot dictator, not
a 'champion of civil liberties.' And that is
one of the reason libertarians will NOT
miss Bob Barr.
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