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Conservative Democrats

Anyone who may know a little political history might already know that the Democratic Party was once the party of classical liberalism, that is, laissez-faire government. That changed slowly beginning in the late 19th Century with the popularity of socialistic policies. The new liberal/quasi-socialist movement reached its most notable height during the FDR administration with its New Deal. Since then, the Democratic Party has for the most part been the party of centralised socio-economic planning.

The shift in terminologies coincided with the opposition to the New Deal through what became known as the consevative movement within the Republican Party. Now, it was the Republicans who embraced laissez-faire. Of course, this movement wasn’t universal within the party. Many continued in the Teddy Roosevelt/Wilsonian tradition of foreign intervention and some limited central planning. This is the wing from which the Bushes come. This, arguably, is also the chief cause of dissatisfaction with the GOP among traditional conservatives. 

Sean Scallon writing for American Chronicle writes:

A former conservative Republican state senator in Wisconsin has come up with a ingenious way to help elect more conservatives to the Wisconsin State Legislature.

Run them as Democrats.

With the unpopularity of the Republican Party at an all time high and after years of futility trying to elect Republicans candidates in heavily Democratic districts, former state senator Tom Reynolds of Milwaukee has started an organization called “Clean Sweep Wisconsin” which intends to run and support a slate of conservative candidates against incumbent Democratic state Assembly and Senate members in the fall open primary.

This is tactic may or may not work, depending on voter turnout of course. But it does indicate that there’s a growing faction within the Democratic Party that may very well in time become a de facto political party on its own and may satisfy the need that many voters have for a new party:

Conservative Democrats. Continue reading.

Post Questions for Barr, Nader, Baldwin

Forum allows readers to post questions for Barr, Nader, and Baldwin:

Now WorldNetDaily is offering you an opportunity to help define the issues and pose your questions to Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader and others – or all of them if you choose.

At Forums.WND.com, WND’s interactive home page, a new fixture has been created to provide a venue for your questions to the leaders of the Libertarian, Constitution and other parties.

I love the new media.

 

Chris Wallace Briefly Interviews Bob Barr

One of the mouthpieces for FoxNews and establishment media, Chris Wallace, had Bob Barr on Fox News Sunday.

Bob Barr FOX News Sunday w/ Chris Wallace 06/29/2008

Though I would have preferred to see more about what he plans to do as president, Barr dealt with the typical assaults in the form of questions in a manner befitting a head of state. We could only hope that former Clintonista George Stephanopoulos would do much better and actually ask questions like, ‘If you are elected president would you . . . ?’

Perhaps I’m asking too much.

So far, Glenn Beck, who often refers to himself as ‘an alcoholic former DJ’ gave a much better interview with the Libertarian Presidential Candidate than any of the ‘journalists’ in the mainstream media.

 

Bob Barr & the ACLU

Bob Barr is probably the most enigmatic candidate to come along in a long time. He has to defend himself from a constant barrage of attacks from both conservatives and libertarians. One of the attacks against him from the culturally right is that he is a privacy consultant for the ACLU.

I admit I completely disagree with so much that the ACLU has stood for over the years, but I’ve learned not to paint the organisation with such a broad paint brush. There is a conservative faction in the organisation as well.

Bob Barr was interviewed by Reason Magazine back in 2003. He answered the question regarding his membership:

Reason: A lot of people were surprised when you took a post with the ACLU, but you actually cooperated with them going back at least to the early Clinton years.

Barr: It started with the initial anti-terrorism bill in ‘96. That probably was the first time that we recognized specifically that we had some very fundamental common interests. We worked together after that on several other pieces of legislation, such as the asset forfeiture reform, the national driver’s license, and the Know Your Customer program.

I had always known them to be a very, very consistent advocate for civil liberties, but we disagreed on so many issues that I never really sought them out in terms of an ally. But shortly after I came up to the Congress, I realized — and I think they realized the same thing — that the size of government and the expansiveness of government power were creating a smaller sphere of personal liberty and personal privacy, and that we needed to find allies in this fight, and work together on those issues in which we agree and agree to disagree on the other issues.

– Bob Barr, Civil Libertarian: The Right Wing of the ACLU.

Many in the culturally left wing of the Libertarian Party see Barr’s participation in these things as a matter of political expediency. Whether or not that is the case, I don’t know. I do know that Bob Barr has been active in matters of personal liberty for at least 5 years. That has to count for something.

 

McCain the Neocon: Another Big Government Republican

 

‘Senator Clinton and Senator Obama want to increase the size of the federal government. I intend to reduce it.’ - Sen John McCain

Excerpt from An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom by John McCain, published by the Council on Foreign Relations:

I will increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps from the currently planned level of roughly 750,000 troops to 900,000 troops. Enhancing recruitment will require more resources and will take time, but it must be done as soon as possible.

Along with more personnel, our military needs additional equipment in order to make up for its recent losses and modernize. We can partially offset some of this additional investment by cutting wasteful spending. But we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates — far less than what we spent during the Cold War. We must also accelerate the transformation of our military, which is still configured to fight enemies that no longer exist.

America needs not simply more soldiers but more soldiers with the skills necessary to help friendly governments and their security forces resist common foes. I will create an Army Advisory Corps with 20,000 soldiers to partner with militaries abroad, and I will increase the number of U.S. personnel available to engage in Special Forces operations, civil affairs activities, military policing, and military intelligence. We also need a nonmilitary deployable police force to train foreign forces and help maintain law and order in places threatened by state collapse.

Today, understanding foreign cultures is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. As president, I will launch a crash program in civilian and military schools to prepare more experts in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, and Pashto. Students at our service academies should be required to study abroad. I will enlarge the military’s Foreign Area Officer program and create a new specialty in strategic interrogation in order to produce more interrogators who can obtain critical knowledge from detainees by using advanced psychological techniques, rather than the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

I will set up a new agency patterned after the erstwhile Office of Strategic Services. A modern-day OSS could draw together specialists in unconventional warfare, civil affairs, and psychological warfare; covert-action operators; and experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines from inside and outside government. Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble, can-do organization. It would fight terrorist subversion around the world and in cyberspace. It could take risks that our bureaucracies today rarely consider taking — such as deploying infiltrating agents without diplomatic cover in terrorist states and organizations — and play a key role in frontline efforts to rebuild failed states.

As we increase our military capacity, we must also enhance our civilian capacity. As president, I will energize and expand our postconflict reconstruction capabilities so that any military campaign would be complemented by a civilian “surge” that would build the political and economic foundations of peace. To better coordinate our disparate military and civilian operations, I will ask Congress for a civilian follow-on to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which fostered a culture of joint operations within the military services. The new act would create a framework for civil servants and military forces to train and work together in order to facilitate cooperation in postconflict reconstruction.

We must also revitalize our public diplomacy. In 1998, the Clinton administration and Congress mistakenly agreed to abolish the U.S. Information Agency and move its public diplomacy functions to the State Department. This amounted to unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas. I will work with Congress to create a new independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message to the world — a critical element in combating Islamic extremism and restoring the positive image of our country abroad.

I’m not the brightest candle in the church, but I fail see how this is reducing the the size of the federal government.

Barr on 2nd Amendment Ruling

Barr on the SCOTUS upholding of the 2nd Amendment:

Until today, the Court had never held that the Second Amendment directly applied to individuals. “Today’s decision marks a new era for gun rights in America,” explains Barr, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association. Barr also drafted the Libertarian Party’s amicus curiae brief in Heller. “By protecting an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment ensures that all Americans are able to participate in sporting activities, hunt, and protect themselves and their families,” he explains.

The right to self-defense is particularly important for women and minorities in a city like Washington, D.C. “Where crime rates are high, a gun may be the only means for law-abiding citizens to safeguard themselves and their families,” Barr notes. “Lawful gun ownership deters an untold number of crimes every year.”
But the Court’s ruling, though welcome, is not enough. “It is important to have a president who also supports the right of Americans to own firearms,” says Barr. “Sen. Barack Obama says that he believes in such a constitutional right, but he supports the District of Columbia’s ban, which gives criminals an advantage over law-abiding citizens,” notes Barr.

Sen. McCain has not advocated an absolute prohibition, “but he cosponsored legislation which could require registration of attendees at gun shows and even ban such shows,” Barr warns. And Sen. McCain’s campaign legislation “curtailed the First Amendment right of gun owners to protect their rights by participating in election campaigns.”

As part of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment undergirds American liberty. “The individual’s right to keep and bear arms helps ensure all of our freedoms,” says Barr.

 

SCOTUS Upholds the 2nd (?)

Supreme Court upholds 2nd Amendment in DC Gun Ban case (sorta):

Quotes from the Majority Opinion 

“Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command.”

“We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.”

“the most natural reading of ‘keep Arms’ in the Second Amendment is to “have weapons.”

“The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.”

“Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.”

 

“Thus, we do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose.”

“The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting.”

 

“It was plainly the understanding in the post-Civil War Congress that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to use arms for self-defense.”

 

 

Bob Barr on FISA

Bob Barr Rips FISA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUwERBdEDbE

Radio Forum w/ Conservative Democrat, Bob Conley

Jack Hunter, the ‘Southern Avenger’ hosted a radio forum with the conservative Democratic US Senate candidate Bob Conley who will face Senator Lindsey Graham this fall:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3