Six years ago, I parted ways with the Libertarian Party over its
misguided attempt to defeat Bob Barr in the Republican -- that's
right, Republican -- primary. Just as many Libertarians cling to
their pipe dream that they had a role in defeating him despite
evidence showing their efforts backfired, many now harbor similar
delusions about Barr himself.
My favorite criticism of Bob Barr now is that he is a
prohibitionist neocon who voted for the USA PATRIOT Act. Some
critics decry his Defense of Marriage Act, support of the Fair Tax.
Others go further, claiming that he has "changed his whole world
view" to snooker the Libertarian Party to get their presidential
nomination to "ride Ron Paul's coattails."
As Dr. Paul's banking staffer, I used to have ask Barr to scoot
his chair in so I could pass him on the dais to get to my boss, and
we always worked closely together. For one committee markup, Barr
and Paul both showed up with amendments to withdraw the United
States from the International Monetary Fund. His staffer and I
hastily cut and pasted ours together for our "ransom note"
amendment with different margins, font styles, and sizes. See how
fun politics can be?
Like Bob Barr, Dr. Paul himself supports DOMA (neither one supports a constitutional marriage
amendment) and either a flat tax or the Fair Tax as preferable to
the mess we have now. This "neocon warmonger" Barr joined Dr. Paul
in suing President Clinton to stop his illegal
bombing of Kosovo without congressional approval.
The "prohibitionist" charge carried some weight, but even while
in Congress when the tension of protecting privacy and civil
liberties challenged the drug war, Barr defended privacy. He joined
my fight against the Know Your Customer bank spying proposal and
managed Dr. Paul's floor amendment on it. He was a leader in
reforming civil asset forfeiture abuses.
True to his libertarian instincts, Barr was initially skeptical of President George W. Bush's
anti-terrorism proposal and earned the ire of Karl Rove for speaking up against it. He worked with a
broad coalition of groups -- including conservatives, libertarians,
leftists, privacy activists, and even drug policy reform groups --
to protect our civil liberties in the debate.
And here's the important part: He voted for the bill in the
Judiciary committee because we needed him to. Only members who
voted for it could be on the conference committee that "reconciled"
the House and Senate versions.
THOSE MORE FAMILIAR with how bills become laws than the classic
Schoolhouse Rock version understand that the devil is
in the details. The conference committee is where the real evil
takes place.
The USA PATRIOT Act conference committee suffered the
stubbornness of Bob Barr fighting the worst of it and enacted some
provisions to sunset some compromises in exchange for his
support.
Sure, fellow Republicans Ron Paul and Bob Ney joined "Butch"
Otter who spoke eloquently against its passage on the
House floor and voted against the final passage, but none of them
were on the Judiciary committee. None of them had the opportunity
and responsibility to fight over the devilish details.
Thankfully, we had a former CIA agent and prosecutor on our side
who knew the ins and outs and the ramifications of the proposals to
fight for our privacy and civil liberties. He was our "man on the
inside" for us to share our proposals. Some of those proposals were
adopted and became law.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. Barr has been a defender of privacy in the war on terror. He worked
with the American Civil Liberties Union on the 1996
anti-terrorism bill and literally worked for them after leaving
Congress to continue his privacy activism.
It's telling that Barr doesn't think he did enough to safeguard
our liberties. He now regrets the USA PATRIOT Act vote that he
exchanged for Bush's promises. Just as most Americans gave
President Bush some benefit of the doubt in those hectic and
fearful days immediately after the terrorist attacks, Barr believed
the president when he said that the powers in the anti-terrorism
bill would be a ceiling not a floor.
Similarly, Barr went along with Bush's push for war in Iraq, as
did a majority of Americans. Now, millions share Barr's
disillusionment. The scales have even fallen from his eyes
regarding the federal drug war's intrusiveness. He lobbied for the Marijuana Policy Project on his road to
Damascus and has picked up support from former drug war
critics.
These changes should not be at all surprising. Bob Barr had been
working with central bank haters, anti-war protesters, and privacy
and civil liberties activists for some time. Would he go as far as
we would like as quickly as we'd like? Well, no. But the
National Review collective recently editorialized against the "new Barr," saying
that he is a "non-interventionist anti-government purist committed
to a thoroughgoing civil libertarianism."
topics:
Constitution, Law, Iraq, Libertarianism
