Include Bob Barr In The Debate
Got this press release from the Libertarian Party, subject-lined "Barack Obama Can Debate Bob Barr":
McCain Moves to Dictate Debate Timing, Agenda Should Be RejectedAtlanta, GA - With the recent proposal of Senator John McCain to postpone the first presidential debate, it is clear that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has no authority.
"For the past several elections, candidates have used the CPD as an official buffer to keep competition out of the two-party presidential contest," says Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr. "McCain publicly proved with his announcement what we've been saying all along: The candidates call the shots as to when to debate, where to debate and who to debate."
Barr continued, "Given Senator McCain's political stunt to avoid the debate, I ask that Friday's debate moves forward without him, as I am more than willing to step in to participate."
In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan chose to debate John Anderson, one-on-one, without Jimmy Carter.
In the 1992 election, George H.W. Bush demanded the inclusion of H. Ross Perot in all three presidential debates.
"It's time that at least one of the two leading presidential candidates show leadership and provide the American public an opportunity to witness an open and fair debate, based upon substance and issues rather than sound bites and rhetoric," concluded Barr.
First of all, I know a lot of people are disillusioned with both parties, and while I don't think Barr is electable, a viable third party in this country would be a very healthy thing. Giving the Libertarian Party a chance to show its stuff at a time when the American people are probably more ready for it, thanks to the fiscal wild west that our country has become, is the right thing to do. Also, I think Barr's inclusion will help cut through some of the mountains of bullshit of both candidates. The guy should be brought in to the debate.
What about Darth Nader?
The Mad Hungarian at September 25, 2008 8:22 AM
How can you make such a statement and then say in the following post that there are only 'two real candidates'.
If every person who is begrudgingly voting for McCain would say, "out of Principle, I cannot vot for him", you'd be certainly saying there are 'three real candidates'.
I'm probably not going to vote, but if there was ever a need for a third party, the time to have one is certainly in the next month and a half.
Look at it this way, if Barr starts getting national coverage, it would likely force McCain to move further right, a good thing. I think of it as the market forcing competition to produce the best candidate. Right now, people who keep proping up the idea of 'only two real parties' are essentially regulating (ie prohibiting) the pool of candidates'.
Not trying to get pissy or anything, but this notion has been going on for years. I've always wondered how things would have turned out if people honored thier instincts and beliefs.
j.d. at September 25, 2008 8:07 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/09/25/include_bob_bar.html#comment-1593244">comment from j.d.Unless Barr has a hope of getting a majority of votes, he's not a viable candidate. What I'd like and what the reality are are two different things. Not a big Bob Barr fan. I would like to see a viable third party.
Amy Alkon at September 26, 2008 12:16 AM
It happened in 1992. We got Bill Clinton.
If it happens in 2008, we get Barack Obama.
It's that whole frying-pan/fire thing. I'd rather spend a few more years in the frying pan in the hopes that someone comes along and turns off the gas. Obama's likely to just flip the pan over and be done with it.
brian at September 26, 2008 5:20 AM
j.d.says - Not trying to get pissy or anything, but this notion has been going on for years. I've always wondered how things would have turned out if people honored thier instincts and beliefs.
I absolutely agree, J.D. I'm not crazy about Bob Barr, either. But all my life I've heard people say "I'd vote for X, but he's/she's not a viable candidate/I'd be wasting my vote/you can't change anything/stop dreaming/ you people are nuts etc. etc. (Not that Amy is saying all that, I've heard those statements in various forms from various places).
The translation, in all too many cases, is this IMO - "I want things to change - but I don't want to do anything to change it (not even cast a vote out of my comfort zone) or take any responsibility for changing it."
It is no wonder things.never.change.
And I'm not trying to be pissy either - I personally have deep affection for some close friends who take this view. But more than one "nonviable third party candidate" (not to mention the entire Libertarian Party) has been predicting for years that this is coming - we have been living on a credit card, managed economies are not sustainable, our little house of cards is going to come down. And it is. So its a little hard to be patient when people go - once again - into the same endless loop of rationalizations for continuing to make the same mistakes expecting different results.
One of those things ya wish you would be wrong about - but we aren't.
WolfmanMac at September 26, 2008 7:53 AM
Fine. Let Obama win. You wanna play Russian Roulette with an AK-47, who the fuck am I to stop you.
Our first responsibility needs to be the destruction of the Democratic party and the complete removal of all talk of socialism in polite company as a serious political and economic doctrine.
Once that's been achieved, we can dismantle the Republican party.
But anything that gives unfettered control of all three branches of the government to the Democratic party is entirely unacceptable.
And this is before I consider whether or not Bob Barr is worthy to hold the office, and in my opinion he is not. His behavior as a Republican makes me doubt that he actually believes a word of what he now says.
In other words, even without anything on the line, Bob Barr is just as fundamentally unserious as the rest of the candidates. If the Libertarian (or any other party) could come up with a SERIOUS candidate, then maybe they'd get some traction.
But as long as you have one alternative party whose candidate says "God is giving us a taste of hell", and another who was a hog at the trough as a Republican and now wants us to believe he's committed to small government, then there are no serious alternative candidates.
brian at September 26, 2008 8:04 AM
Brian says: Our first responsibility needs to be the destruction of the Democratic party and the complete removal of all talk of socialism in polite company as a serious political and economic doctrine.
The Republicans are Socialists, Brian. They are simply Right Wing Socialists. Socialism is the boot on the neck of society. When someone is standing on your neck, it makes little difference whether they are doing so with their right boot or their left one.
I once shared your faith that some small part of the Republican Party still stood for the Constitutional, small government, individual liberty values that the Republican Party likes to trumpet. Four Republican presidents in my Lifetime. Four. 3 of them were two termers. We have National Health Care, a cap on wealth and a public dole to go before we are 100%, honest to god socialists. And they have done nothing to prevent it, and have even helped it along. At least one of those things (National health) is all but inevitable. A cap on wealth? Not far behind.
At some point, ya gotta show me something besides talk. If you call a dog to you, and kick him when he comes, even the dumbest dog stops coming after awhile.
It used to be I hated Democrats, but thought Republicans were alright. Then I hated them both equally. Now, I must say, the Republicans have pulled ahead of the Democrats.
Why?
The Democrats are pultroons. They always have been. They deserve all the contempt I have for them.
But Republicans KNOW BETTER - they have long since sold out their principles for political expediency, KNOWING it was the wrong thing for the country, the wrong thing for freedom. But they did it anyway, and now they are nothing more than - well, see above. They are Right Wing Socialists, who want to use the power of government to form society in their image.
Eight Years of George Bush. Brian rails - " I KNEW he wasn't a conservative waaaaay back then!!!"
Butcha voted for him, didntcha?
And you got what you paid for. So everything he has done, he has done with your imprimatur. I will admit I voted for him, and the same goes for me. But I'll admit that and say, no more. This dog came when he was called and got kicked for the last time.
WolfmanMac at September 26, 2008 12:45 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/09/25/include_bob_bar.html#comment-1593374">comment from WolfmanMacAbsolutely, WolfmanMac. I find it really hard to find the Republicans in power palatable because so many of them are not only meddle-in-your-panties religious nutters, but because they're socialists, too. They just call themselves fiscal conservatives. The real difference is who they hand your money over to: the Democrats give welfare to the poor; the Republicans give welfare to the rich. Either way, they're giving my money away, usually in a most wasteful and unproductive way, and I don't like it.
Amy Alkon at September 26, 2008 12:54 PM
Wolf - as I said, I'm a pragmatist, not an idealist. I harbor no illusions that we will ever return to a limited government. So my goal is to merely delay the rise of total socialism until after I'm dead.
My vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004 was meaningless in the grand scheme since CT was carried handily by the Democrat in each election. But I wasn't going to vote for Gore or Kerry - there isn't enough soap in the world for me to feel clean after doing it. And there hasn't been a sane third party candidate yet, and I'm not voting for someone crazier than I am.
I do know this. If Obama wins in November, I and everyone like me (small business owners) are going to be in the cross-hairs, or grabbed by the short-hairs.
McCain is my only hedge against that.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? Let Obama and the Democrats in Congress ruin me at 39?
And as far as conservative Republicans go, they do exist - they just happen to be in the one place where they can't do a fucking thing - in the House of Representatives. The liberal Republicans in the Senate sold them out time after time when they were in the majority, and the Republican base decided to "punish" them. And that's how we get Nancy Pelosi. How's that workin' for ya?
brian at September 26, 2008 1:23 PM
Amy - it's not that I find the Republicans palatable, it's just the choice between gruel on one hand, and poison on the other. At least eating gruel I've got a chance to survive another day.
brian at September 26, 2008 1:24 PM
Brian says: What the fuck am I supposed to do? Let Obama and the Democrats in Congress ruin me at 39?
No, Brian. Let McCain and the Republicans ruin you at 44. George Bush did in 8 what Al Gore would have done in 4. Its back to the wall analogy, remember? We're going to hit it very, very hard and the end result will be the same for everybody who isn't in power.
Brian says: And that's how we get Nancy Pelosi. How's that workin' for ya?
What exactly has she done that is so much more awful than anybody else, Brian? Did she bring some remarkably new level of socialist depravity to the government that was not present before she came?
WolfmanMac at September 26, 2008 2:52 PM
Wolf - if you think that what Bush has done is anywhere near what Gore would have done, you're seriously underestimating the damage Gore's environmental package would have inflicted on the world.
Like I said, my primary interest at this point is being dead before the revolution comes. Something about taking up arms against my own kind that doesn't sit well.
As far as Pelosi? Her abject stupidity has lowered the level of debate in the House of Representatives to such a level that a high-school student council would look at her and say "God, why don't you just grow up already?"
Pelosi and Reid have laid out their intentions. Barack Obama will go along with them, and they won't wait to get even a token Republican on board for blame deflection at that point. Whether you hate Bush or not, he's stopped a lot of the Democratic party's depravity the past year and a half. That little "60 vote" precedent that the Dems started when they were the minority in the Senate give a little more backing to Bush, but he threatened the veto a lot more in 2007 than he did in the six years prior.
In other words, Democrats != Republicans, no matter how bad you want to believe it.
And if you think your little protest vote for Barr is gonna change minds, go for it. Let's say you manage to pull it out, and Barr wins. What next? Do you think for one second that he's gonna stop Congress? Hell no. The two parties will band together and steamroll his ass.
Hence the need to utterly and completely destroy the Democratic party first. Take them out of the picture, and we'll be in a far better position to dictate terms.
brian at September 26, 2008 3:30 PM
Brian says: Like I said, my primary interest at this point is being dead before the revolution comes. Something about taking up arms against my own kind that doesn't sit well.
Which (as I have pointed out before), was Keanes idea - in the long run, we're all dead, so who cares? Too bad you can't see the entire point here, Brian - you exhibit, on every topic, the exact same thinking processes that have gotten us to this point. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes expect...oh, nevermind.
Brian says: Whether you hate Bush or not, he's stopped a lot of the Democratic party's depravity the past year and a half.
That was mighty swell of him, Bri. Meanwhile, we are tied down in two wars on different fronts (neither of which required that little formality of "declaration," which one of them would certainly have gotten, but lets not get bogged down in constitutional details, people will think we're crazies), our military is stretched to the breaking point, our national debt is estimated to reach, what was it, 10 trillion dollars, our economy is about to hit bottom with a shovel in its hand, our dollar is losing power all over the world, gasoline has hit 4 dollars a gallon and will go higher, we have warrantless wiretaps, detention without charges, our domestic spending on entitlement programs tops Clinton, then we have Medicare, Medicaid, the prescription drug benefit - Brian, these are coming off the top of my head. This is the concrete stuff - on a philosophical level, the man has singlehandedly done more damage to the reputation of conservatism as a political philosophy than Ted Kennedy ever dreamed he could do.Granted, that isn't entirely fair - the man is to conservatism as socialism is to freedom. But he is (and will be for decades) inextricably linked to conservatism by its detractors, and he has given them more than enough ammunition to make those charges stick, fairly or not.
In short, Brian, this is the best President the Democrats have ever had. Anything Al Gore or Nancy Pelosi would have done that he didn't do is offset by some other stupid thing he did. The mans performance has been so bad that it looks like some half wit named Barack somebody may well win the election. That right there should say it all. Not to mention he has an approval rating of only 1/4 OF HIS OWN PARTY. HE IS THE REPUBLICAN JIMMY CARTER. But Jimmy Carter was a Democrat - he's supposed to be an idiot. You all are supposed to be grown ups.
So here it is in a nutshell Brian. Both parties stay in power via a symbiotic relationship that requires only this - keeping their core constituencies MORE pissed off at what the other party is doing or might do than they are about what their own party is doing. The power brokers from both parties know damn well what they are doing, but their real motive is this -
my primary interest at this point is being dead before the revolution comes.
My motivation is best summed up in a quote from Obermann, related by Camus in "Resistance, Rebellion, and Death" -
"Man is mortal. That may be; but let us die resisting; and if our lot is complete annihilation, let us not behave in such a way that it seems justice!"
WolfmanMac at September 27, 2008 8:27 AM
Thank you,Amy.
WolfmanMac at September 27, 2008 8:33 AM
Wolf, if you're going to base your detraction of Bush on a bunch of half-truths, irrelevancies, and outright lies, then of course you're going to come to incorrect conclusions.
Uh, Congress declared war on Iraq in 1991, and reaffirmed that in both 1998 and 2003.
Untrue. We could reallocate some 100,000 to 200,000 troops immediately by removing our presence from Europe and forcing them to finance their own defense, so long as we're willing to risk another European war like WWI or WWII.
Irrelevant. So long as there are people willing to finance it, it does not matter. But if you were truly interested in debt reduction, you'd not be happy with the impact on the economy anyhow.
Untrue. The fundamentals of the economy are strong. Our financial system is on acid. IT needs to be smacked up side the head and righted.
Untrue. The Euro was artifically inflated by Brussels with the intent of harming the US economy. That failed, and now the Euro is dropping precipitously from its unsustainable fake high. Any pressure on the currency at this point is due to the malfeasance in the financial markets.
gasoline has hit 4 dollars a gallon and will go higherIrrelevant. Gasoline at $3/gal is still cheaper in adjusted dollars than when Carter was running things in the late 70s.
Untrue. There were no "wiretaps", there was data mining.
Untrue. Unless you know something I don't. And if you count Padilla as your only example of it, if we were to keep with the laws of war, he should have been shot on sight.
Irrelevant. Given the sway that the elderly have (there are growing numbers of them, and they ALL vote) we were going to get that shit shoved down our throats anyhow. Remember who's collecting on this shit - aging boomers. They are going to suck the economy dry because no politician has the balls to say "NO!" to them. The boomers are the most self-centered generation of individuals ever unleashed upon society. And they all think they are entitled to retire at 65 and maintain the lifestyle they became accustomed to when they were yuppies.
So this whole list of the ills unleashed upon America by the Bush Administration is supposed to get me to accept the ascension of the new messiah to the presidency because you won't vote for McCain in a fit of pique?
I would have accepted losing the White House to Hillary. She's a pragmatist. A commie, but a pragmatist none the less. And she doesn't get along one little bit with San Fran Nan. So we would have had something like gridlock on Nancy's ridiculous ideas. With Obama, we get no such thing. He's gleefully voted with his party almost 100% of the time, doesn't have a pragmatist bone in his body, and he's a Chicago Thug to boot.
And I think that's probably my biggest apprehension about Obama. He's an acolyte of Daley. I'd feel safer with an acolyte of Capone, if you know what I mean.
brian at September 28, 2008 9:07 AM
I wish that they would invite everyone who is on the ballot in say, at least 40 states, to the debates.
Right now, they won't invite anyone who doesn't poll high enough to the debates, ensuring that they don't get more press, and thus will not poll high enough.
NicoleK at September 30, 2008 7:41 AM
Sorry so long getting back to this. Been busy.
Brian says: Uh, Congress declared war on Iraq in 1991, and reaffirmed that in both 1998 and 2003.
oh yeah, you're right - when the Constitution talks about a "Declaration of War" it says right there - "Declaration of War - Authorizing the President to Use Force - same same, whatever." Its in invisible ink - visible only to Statists.
Brian says: Untrue. We could reallocate some 100,000 to 200,000 troops immediately by removing our presence from Europe and forcing them to finance their own defense, so long as we're willing to risk another European war like WWI or WWII
Well Brian, far be it from me (a professional soldier) to debate the current military situation with some guy...from Connecticut. I won't go furthe into this for reasons of OPSEC, so just go back to sleep. Everything is juuuuuust fine.
Brian says: Irrelevant. So long as there are people willing to finance it, it does not matter. But if you were truly interested in debt reduction, you'd not be happy with the impact on the economy anyhow.
Of course they are still willing to finance it, Brian. They don't care what happens after they are dead. Sound familiar? They will continue to finance it for their short term gain, gambling they won't live to see the collapse long predicted by the Austrian School. The persitence of this illusion is astonishing - like when I hear a 39 year old man thinking he can "stave off full socialism until after he's dead" - by voting for socialists, no less. More on that later.
Brian says:
Untrue. The fundamentals of the economy are strong. Our financial system is on acid. IT needs to be smacked up side the head and righted
Oh, okay. So long as its just The Financial System. I thought it might be something serious.
Brians says: Untrue. Unless you know something I don't. And if you count Padilla as your only example of it, if we were to keep with the laws of war, he should have been shot on sight
How 'bout that Posse Comitatus thing? I won't insult you by explaining that it died yesterday (1 October 2008) because I'm sure you're completely aware of it. It's ok though - just a little formality. Like that "Declaration of War" deal. No biggie.
Brian Says: Irrelevant. Given the sway that the elderly have (there are growing numbers of them, and they ALL vote) we were going to get that shit shoved down our throats anyhow. Remember who's collecting on this shit - aging boomers. They are going to suck the economy dry because no politician has the balls to say "NO!" to them. The boomers are the most self-centered generation of individuals ever unleashed upon society. And they all think they are entitled to retire at 65 and maintain the lifestyle they became accustomed to when they were yuppies.
Gosh Bri. I'll bet if we asked them they'd say "I'm just voting DEFENSIVELY" and "I don't care about what happens after I'm dead" and "I'm just voting in my own self interest." Hard to believe you don't approve of that attitude, since you have expressed it here in so many words. While I will not quibble with your description of boomers as the most "self centered generation of individuals ever unleashed upon society," it would seem (from your posts) that is not a flaw limited to their generation.
it would seem you just hate the idea that other people out there are voting for there goodies from the trough, while you angrily
express your determination to do the same thing and are astonished that anyone might suggest a more far sighted solution. I have no doubt you DO hate socialism - when your ox is being gored or your sacred cows threatened. But when it benefits you, and takes from the other guy, well of course you're going to vote for it. And you aren't about to let some group of "crazies" tell you that might not be the right thing to do.
I call that "being a Republican."
WolfmanMac at October 2, 2008 3:23 PM
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