I got invited to a dinner party last night by an old Libertarian acquaintance of mine, a dinner party being attended by Bob Barr. It was a fun time and I always love the chance to talk to Libertarians about their political views. My impression of Congressman Barr was that of a man who has on one side really changed his mind and is more of a Libertarian than he used to be, and on the other side seems to be doing this for the sake of getting his name out in the open again. He seemed legitimately upset with the fact that he voted for the Patriot Act and seems dedicated to smaller government and more privacy for its citizens. With that being said when it came to social issues that Libertarians support he seemed to mostly go through the motions of stating the Libertarian platform without having any passion or details to provide. I got the chance to ask him some questions about the economy and I unfortunately didn't find any new answers to my old questions. The big question I always ask Libertarians is 'why do you support economic deregulation when the corporate scandals of Enron, the mortgage crisis and sky rocketing fuel prices were all at least partially caused by deregulation." Congressman Barr's answer was the same answer I have heard many times before, that all these things happened because we didn't deregulate enough and that complete deregulation would not have caused these unfortunate economic events. The big difference was that unlike most Libertarians he gave the answer sounding confident and like he was giving a valid response. I don't think this was because of his belief in what he was saying but because he is a Grade A politician who has a lot more practice, than your average Libertarian, telling people things he might not mean. What I am really interested in is whether or not Barr says, in public, some of the things he said last night. He is for violently slashing government spending, and wants to cut the budget by 10% a year till it's down to 50% of its current size. Unlike a lot of Libertarians he actually said some things he would cut. He said he wants to get rid of the Departments of Education, Energy, and Commerce, among others. He also said he wants to let states decide on gay marriage and said he wants to legalize all drugs (two Libertarian issues that he has actively fought against in the past). It will be neat to see if he sticks to those issues when the light of the media is on him. He is a strict constitutionalist who thinks all powers of government should be derived from the Constitution. This is ironic coming from a third party candidate since our constitution assures that there will only ever be two major parties (though its possible that the Libertarians could eventually unseat one of the parties). He hasn't quite gotten the feel for being a Libertarian and stumbled on how to respond to an Environmentalism question. He ended up saying he supported regulations on polluters (a power derived maybe from cross state economic concerns or dealing with multi-state conflicts?). His strict constitutional view isn't necessarily Libertarian (though they do have a lot of constitutionalists), this is because a lot of Libertarians don't even think the States should have some of the powers Congressman Barr wants to give them (though they prefer the individual states to the federal government). I didn't get the chance to ask him what we should do when one state's educational system falls apart, or when inflation gets out of control, or who would regulate interest rates, etc... I'd very much like to see Barr have to answer some of these questions but that would only happen if he got into the National Debates (which is an unlikely scenario). It was a good time and I'm glad I got to pick the Congressman's brain for a little bit.

I got invited to a dinner party last night by an old Libertarian acquaintance of mine, a dinner party being attended by Bob Barr. It was a fun time and I always love the chance to talk to Libertarians about their political views. My impression of Congressman Barr was that of a man who has on one side really changed his mind and is more of a Libertarian than he used to be, and on the other side seems to be doing this for the sake of getting his name out in the open again. He seemed legitimately upset with the fact that he voted for the Patriot Act and seems dedicated to smaller government and more privacy for its citizens. With that being said when it came to social issues that Libertarians support he seemed to mostly go through the motions of stating the Libertarian platform without having any passion or details to provide.

I got the chance to ask him some questions about the economy and I unfortunately didn't find any new answers to my old questions. The big question I always ask Libertarians is 'why do you support economic deregulation when the corporate scandals of Enron, the mortgage crisis and sky rocketing fuel prices were all at least partially caused by deregulation." Congressman Barr's answer was the same answer I have heard many times before, that all these things happened because we didn't deregulate enough and that complete deregulation would not have caused these unfortunate economic events. The big difference was that unlike most Libertarians he gave the answer sounding confident and like he was giving a valid response. I don't think this was because of his belief in what he was saying but because he is a Grade A politician who has a lot more practice, than your average Libertarian, telling people things he might not mean.

What I am really interested in is whether or not Barr says, in public, some of the things he said last night. He is for violently slashing government spending, and wants to cut the budget by 10% a year till it's down to 50% of its current size. Unlike a lot of Libertarians he actually said some things he would cut. He said he wants to get rid of the Departments of Education, Energy, and Commerce, among others. He also said he wants to let states decide on gay marriage and said he wants to legalize all drugs (two Libertarian issues that he has actively fought against in the past). It will be neat to see if he sticks to those issues when the light of the media is on him. He is a strict constitutionalist who thinks all powers of government should be derived from the Constitution. This is ironic coming from a third party candidate since our constitution assures that there will only ever be two major parties (though its possible that the Libertarians could eventually unseat one of the parties). He hasn't quite gotten the feel for being a Libertarian and stumbled on how to respond to an Environmentalism question. He ended up saying he supported regulations on polluters (a power derived maybe from cross state economic concerns or dealing with multi-state conflicts?). His strict constitutional view isn't necessarily Libertarian (though they do have a lot of constitutionalists), this is because a lot of Libertarians don't even think the States should have some of the powers Congressman Barr wants to give them (though they prefer the individual states to the federal government). I didn't get the chance to ask him what we should do when one state's educational system falls apart, or when inflation gets out of control, or who would regulate interest rates, etc... I'd very much like to see Barr have to answer some of these questions but that would only happen if he got into the National Debates (which is an unlikely scenario). It was a good time and I'm glad I got to pick the Congressman's brain for a little bit.