Presidential Candidate Bob Barr on the Failure of Conservative Values

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Jul 27, 2008 12:13 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Sacramento For Democracy, Alameda for Democracy, Philly for Change, DFA Film Club, Democracy for Maryland

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

 At Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas, you can always tell when a VIP is in the room.  Just look for the person with a deferential crowd gathered around them and  follow the direction the cameras are pointed. While I feel uncomfortable standing so deferentially in anyone's presence, I have a job to do, and that's to find out how exactly conservative values have failed. So, when I saw a crowed gathered in the hallway, I moseyed on over with my video camera in hand and worked myself into the front of the crowed.  There was  Bob Barr, the Libertarian presidential candidate. After patiently waiting for the other interviewers to finish asking their questions, I asked Bob, "Have Conservative Values Failed?"

Presidential Candidate Bob Barr on the Failure of Conservative Values

Bob Barr:  I'm not sure.  The term "conservative values" means so many different things to so many different people.  To me, what has utterly failed in the traditional conservative movement is any understanding of or respect for true individual liberty and our constitutional system of government, which was designed expressly to provide protection for individual liberty.

We now have a government which calls itself conservative, yet believes it's okay to spy on American citizens within their own country without a court order.  We now have an administration which calls itself conservative and supports conservative values that believes it's okay to detain a citizen or non-citizen in this country and never give them access to courts to determine under habeas corpus if they are being held properly.

So if in fact respect for individual liberty, respect for the Constitution are conservative values, we certainly don't have that in Washington nowadays. 

 Edwin: How about the Family Values?

Family values are part and parcel of the same notion of individual liberty.  Where you have a Federal government, or in the cases of many of our state governments, state governments that want to tell individual citizens or the Federal government to override the decisions of the citizens.

For example, if the citizens of a particular state wish to legalize medicinal marijuana, or to change the definition of marriage in their state, why should the Federal government have any right, if in fact if it respects individual liberty and individual conservative values, have any power have any power to come in and override the position of the people of the state.  Yet that's what we have in Washington.  That's not conservatism.  That's big government. 

The value that is most important to me, is that which is most important, for example, to the great 20th Century philosopher Ayn Rand, and that is the value of individual privacy.  As Ayn Rand said, the value of privacy, the notion of a person being freed from the interference of other people, is the essence of civilization. 

And where you have a government that can come in and can invade your privacy, as Ayn Rand also said, you take away a person's freedom when you do that.  That's the most important and fundamental of all values. 

It's simply an understanding and a recognition that the notion of privacy in virtually everything you see and do government-involved-in nowadays -- whether it's surveillance cameras, whether it is wiretapping, whether it is trying to dictate to individuals or the states how one must behave, whether it's the government believing it can have access to our most personal financial and medical records without ever telling about it, or without showing a probable cause, it is under assault everywhere, and if we don't get a handle on it pretty soon, we'll lose the opportunity forever to do so.  
 

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Questions to Ponder;

So according to Bob Barr,  the failure of traditional conservative movement is that it claims to support the values of privacy and liberty but does not deliverer and it in fact does the opposite. It takes away liberty and privacy.  Isn't that the value of hypocrisy?

 - Why do conservatives individualize values?  They aren't for a universal liberty, but for a qualified 'Individual' liberty. What's that all about?
     see Failed Conservative Values: Jeeni Criscenzo on Scapegoating
 - Conservatives call for privacy and liberty but when in power don't deliver those values. Can conservatives be trusted?

Privacy at Wikipedia
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified in the public realm....

We're supposed to Knock and Announce

Liberty at Wikipedia
Liberty, in modern time, is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the ability to act according to his or her own will.

Individualist and liberal conceptions of liberty relate to the freedom of the individual from outside compulsion or coercion; A socialist perspective, on the other hand, associates liberty with equality in wealth. As such, a socialist redefines liberty as being entitlements and connects liberty (i.e. freedom) to the equal distribution of wealth, arguing that liberty without equal ownership amounts to the domination by the wealthy. Thus, freedom and material equality are seen as intrinsically connected. On the other hand, the individualist argues that wealth cannot be evenly distributed without force being used against individuals which reduces individual liberty......

Liberty leading the People

Hypocrisy at Wikipedia
Hypocrisy (or the state of being a hypocrite) is the act of preaching a certain belief or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself. For example, a teacher telling students they should not plagiarize, while secretly being a plagiarist himself. Hypocrisy is frequently invoked as an accusation in many contexts...... (Claiming to support liberty, freedom and privacy and doing the opposite).

'How nice in this age of rampant hypocrisy, false promises and hollow platitudes to find something that means exactly what it says.'

'Enough frank and honest talk. Let's go back to hypocrisy and dishonest talk.'

Failed Conservative Values
Assist us  in systematically building the arguments and telling the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing  articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project. 

See more Progressive Values Stories:

Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com 
and Study Group

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