Once again Glenn Beck shows support for the Founders’ version of America. He even dons a Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag T-shirt during the clip.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m on a super secret anti-government list for the things I’ve stated here on Liberty Maven over the past couple of years. I had a Ron Paul bumper sticker on my car. I had a Bob Barr bumper sticker on my car. I attended rallies and meetups. I’m an enemy of the state I guess. Oh well. Of course, I’m also a happily married tax-paying, upstanding citizen with two young children with a good job (for now).

If I’m on the list then I’m honored to be there. If I’m not, it must be due to government ineptitude. Lovers of liberty should look at such a list as a petition to sign rather than something to be avoided. Where do I sign?

Watch the free, patriotic, and entertaining goodness below.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I think it is good in fact. It shows there is someone who (at least on the economy) is out there in the main stream press saying what needs to be said. Beck is not ready to latch on to the “elites taking over the world” argument, and neither am I. Though with each passing piece of evidence suggesting we are deliberately devaluing our currency it becomes more difficult not to grab on to that line of thinking. It seems Glenn Beck is fighting the urge latch on.

He goes from talking of the dollar’s demise right into the worry about globalism saying he doesn’t want to “live in a milk toast world”. Finally, he laments that our “Constitution is damn near gone”. On these points I could not agree with him more.

Now if he’d change his neo-con ways a bit on foreign policy we’d have another ally for liberty. However, when people change their ways they aren’t immediately welcomed with red pill induced hugs. One need look no further than Bob Barr for evidence of that.

Listen to his rant here:

Download audio file (glennbeck-dollarcollapse-12152008.mp3)

reason: What did matter? Campaign funds? At the convention, Russ Verney told me that he hoped to raise $30 million, and the campaign eventually raised about $1.2 million.

Barr: If certain things had happened that we expected to happen early on, like gaining access to certain lists very quickly, I think we could have gotten there. But those lists turned out to be not available, unfortunately, and that prevented us early to turn over and over again into significant fundraising. We didn’t get that seed money early on that we anticipated. We realistically anticipated it. We didn’t sit around say ‘it would be nice to have all that money.’”

reason: Was one of these Ron Paul’s fundraising list?

Barr: All I can say is that it appeared very realistic that we would have a list that let us raise a large amount of seed money that we could build on. And that didn’t happen.

Read the full interview

Last week, Campaign for Liberty press guy and Ron Paul grandson-in-law Jesse Benton was driving to a constituent event with his boss and the subject of 2012 came up.

“He hasn’t closed out the idea of another run,” said Benton today. “We have some time to decide whether he runs again, or whether he gets behind somebody else. But we don’t have tons of time. By the middle of 2009, the decision needs to be made.”

Interesting. The article also shows Benton’s opinion on a potential Gary Johnson 2012 bid. His argument uses Bob Barr as an example.

I asked about the rumor that former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson might jump into the race (unclear in which party yet). “If he were to decide that he wanted to do that, he’d be a great guy to take the reins. But I don’t think that what Dr. Paul captured was 100 percent transferable to anyone else. I think the Bob Barr campaign assumed that and it didn’t pan out.”

So it looks like we may know within the next six months or so if Ron Paul will be running in 2012.

Q: Even before the primaries, you said you would not run in the general election. Why specifically did you not run?

A: I was running for the Republican nomination, and I would have run in the general if I had won. I had little interest in running third party due to the inherent biases against such efforts. I also signed legally binding agreements not run third party in 2008 if I failed to win the G.O.P. primary. That was the cost for ballot access in several states, 11 total I believe. So even I had wanted to, it would not have been possible to run in the general after I lost the primary.

In another interesting question (That I swear wasn’t submitted by me. Well, truthfully it was.) that Ron Paul sort of “punts” on is about his relationship with Bob Barr.

Q: Did Bob Barr’s failure to appear at your press conference endorsing the third-party vote cause a rift between you and him? Are you still friends with him?

A: That’s old news as far I’m concerned. I’m more interested in focusing on positive things Americans can accomplish moving forward.

He makes a fair point, but he didn’t answer the question. Then again, judging from his answer we can infer the truth. I’m reminded of the age-old axiom, if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, say nothing at all. I doubt there will be any future joint efforts toward liberty between Paul and Barr. Is it getting cold in here or is it just me?

Judging from some of the comments to the interview we still have a long way to go before people get it through their thick skulls that the government is not a substitute for parenting, hand holding, and individual responsibility.

Read the full set of questions, answers, and several inane comments here.

Some people seem to always vote for the candidate from their chosen party.  Others vote for whomever they believe to be the “lesser of two evils”.  I, personally, am a great advocate of voting on principle ― voting for the person who most aligns with your views, no matter their party or chance of winning.  Determining who that candidate is takes a good deal of research.  Detailed analysis of a candidate’s positions on a wide variety of issues is highly important.  But when you’re slogging through so much information, it can be hard to compare the different people running for office.  How much are these two guys alike?  Exactly how authoritarian is this person’s viewpoint?

And that’s where fun stuff like graphs and quizzes come into play.  A great way of displaying how a certain political philosophy fits into the spectrum of thought is by means of the Nolan Chart.  This is a square (or diamond-shaped) diagram, with a coordinate system charting varying amounts of economic and personal freedom.  With the four corners mapped to the extremes of libertarian (absolute freedom), conservative (economic freedom, but government regulation of personal lives), statist or authoritarian (absolute government control), and liberal (personal freedom, economic regulation) viewpoints, any person or candidate’s beliefs can be pretty well reduced to a point on the graph.

An excellent way of figuring out where you (or the candidate you’re considering) fits on the spectrum, is by means of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.  In it, you indicate whether you agree with ten statements about economic and personal freedom, and then are shown where your views fit on the Nolan Chart.  It’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s pretty accurate.

I got the idea, a few days ago, to try to figure out what answers the six major presidential candidates would give, if they took the quiz.  So, after a lot of research and discussion, I took the quiz for each one of them, and put all their scores together on a single graph, for easy comparison, as you can see in the image above.

The findings were kind of surprising.  I would have expected Chuck Baldwin to be closer to the conservative part of the chart, and I didn’t think Bob Barr would be quite so libertarian.  Nor did I realize how nearly identical McKinney and Nader were on everything!  But McCain and Obama both are, predictably, found in the statist quadrant.  Now this isn’t a completely comprehensive score (there are, after all, only ten questions), so there’s a little room for error.  And there’s no indication of their views on foreign policy, for example.  But you can check the data for each candidate, yourself, at the bottom of this post, where I’ve got an explanation on why I gave them the answer I did on each question.

I doubt anyone will be changing their mind on who to vote for, this late in the season (today, is, after all, election day), but this info should, at least, give you something to think about.  And if, in fact, you haven’t voted yet and are still undecided, taking the quiz and comparing your score to the candidates might be helpful.

I’ll leave you with this quote from John Quincy Adams:

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone; and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

And now, get out and hit the polls!

The Data:

Bob Barr

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Agree
Bob agrees, even opposing laws to stop the concentration of media ownership.

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Maybe
The only quote from him on it I could find is from this 2004 article, in which he sort of supports it, halfheartedly. This was written after he endorsed Badnarik for the 2004 election, and presumably had his political conversion, so it seems likely he has the same views today.

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Maybe
He’s a states’ rights man, so he’s against the federal government getting into it. Whether or not he’s against all such laws is hard to tell. He won’t take a stance on the legalization of prostitution, for example.

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Agree
Barr used to be the biggest proponent of the Drug War; but not anymore.

There should be no National ID card. ― Agree
Agreement, for sure.

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Agree
He opposes corporate welfare, and opposes the bailout, too, though not quite as forcefully as others . . .

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Agree
Kind of hard to find much data on this one (a lot of Google search results talk about his votes against free trade, back when he was in Congress), but there is a statement at the bottom of the Foreign Intervention page on his website that indicates he’s for freedom in this area.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Agree
This is one issue he’s not changed his views on in the past few years. Bob is in favor of privatization, and has been for quite some time.

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Agree
That is his exact plan, in a nutshell.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Agree
Cutting spending is job #1, to him. And then, at the same time, tax reform (he says anything, nearly, is superior to the current income tax). So I think this is an “Agree”!

Chuck Baldwin

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Maybe
This is the only article by him that I could find on the legislation of morality. In it, he says that that sort of thing is not Uncle Sam’s job, but it’s all right for states or cities to ban porn, etc. But then he’s in favor of repealing campaign contribution limits, to add a little freedom to his First Amendment views.

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Agree
Believes the draft to be a violation of the 5th amendment.

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Disagree
Again, the only evidence I can find is the article linked above, in which he says that, while the federal government shouldn’t get into that sort of thing, it’s alright for the states to legislate it.

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Agree
He’s for a rethinking of the Drug War, and his results on VoteSmart’s test indicate he’s in favor of legalizing the possession of at least small amounts of marijuana, as well as less harsh sentences for non-violent criminals. So I guess that would be an “Agree”, though not a very forceful one.

There should be no National ID card. ― Agree
A quote: “We will not advance, we will not tolerate, we will not accept any form of a National ID Identification card!”

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Agree
He agrees, and opposes the bailout as well.

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Disagree
He’s said “We have to get back to Washington, to Jefferson, to the founding fathers; free trade with all, entangling alliances with none.” But he’s in favor of a 10% tariff on all imports, and the Constitution Party’s platform opposes truly free trade, too.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Agree
In favor.

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Maybe
He says that welfare programs need to be examined for their benefit to Americans, and then decide on whether to cut them or keep them.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Agree
Quite definitely. He wants to abolish the income tax, and then cut enough spending so that we’re making more than we’re using, including disbanding several federal Departments.

Ralph Nader

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Agree
Well, it’s pretty hard to find out the answer to this one. A google search on “Ralph Nader” and “censorship” mostly comes up with articles about how he considers people’s requests for him not to campaign to be censorship. But according to this site, he no longer supports hate crime legislation, and he’s in favor of dissenting websites, so it’s an “Agree”.

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Agree
Very much against the draft, I believe. Though he’s warned that there’s one coming . . .

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Agree
And is in favor of gay marriage, as well.

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Agree
Definitely in agreement.

There should be no National ID card. ― Agree
As he says here (wish I’d found this site earlier, it’s got everyone’s views on National ID ― everyone who answered, that is . . .).

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Agree
Yes, in fact, he coined the term.  He’s written an article called Stop Corporate Welfare (his definition of corporate welfare includes rent-free radio shows, too). That’s pretty decisive. And he’s very much against the bailout!

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Disagree
Well, he’s against the sort of “free” trade we’ve got now (which, I’m afraid, is the sort McCain and Obama like). And he doesn’t think real free trade is possible, and so is against it.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Disagree
He’s against privatization.

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Disagree
A quote: “You burn yourselves out doing charitable work. But if you get into politics and go to the cause of these problems, you will have a just society where you don’t need so much charitable work.” That would be against.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Disagree
He’s for tax reform, but not that kind of tax reform.

Cynthia McKinney

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Agree
She opposed the Communications Decency Act and flag desecration laws, when in Congress.

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Agree
She cosponsored H.Con.Res.368, which pretty much tried to abolish the draft.

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Agree
She very strongly supports gay marriage, so I don’t think she’s for depriving anyone of freedom in this area.

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Agree
She wants to end the drug war, and legalize medical marijuana.

There should be no National ID card. ― Agree
“I am against Real IDs!”

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Agree
She thinks the bailout is a bad idea (and has an alternative plan), and wants to eliminate corporate subsidies.

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Disagree
She’s for fair trade, not free.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Disagree
Opposes privatization.

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Disagree
Considering how she wants to reduce the concentration of wealth, I think she doesn’t want to do away with welfare.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Disagree
The only tax cut she voted in favor of was doing away with the marriage penalty. She’s thinks we need to cut military spending, but that’s about it.

John McCain

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Disagree
On his old campaign site from 2000, he says he supports internet censorship. Though whether that’s federal censorship or he just thinks parents need to do the right thing, is hard to tell. But then there’s his War on Blogs, too. So I think a “Disagree” is warranted.

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Disagree
He’s open to the concept, which shows he doesn’t oppose the draft ideologically.

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Agree
He’s in favor of civil unions for gays (and doesn’t think homosexuality is a sin: why are conservative Christians voting for him?). And while I wasn’t able to find any views of his on prostitution, there’s rumors that back in Vietnam . . .

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Disagree
He’s for the continuation of the drug war.

There should be no National ID card. ― Disagree
He’s in favor of REAL ID (and, interestingly, Palin’s against it).

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Disagree
He supports the bailout, voted for it, and even suspended his campaign to promote it.

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Agree
He says he’s a free trader.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Disagree
He used to be for it, is now against it?

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Disagree
Nope.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Maybe
He’s for cutting taxes and government size, but not that much. He’ll only cut taxes 4.4% for the richest folks, and they’re the ones he’s cutting the most on. However, he talks a lot about cutting spending on pork, and wants to balance the budget (which’ll take a lot of cutting), so we’ll give him a maybe.

Barack Obama

Personal Issues
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet. ― Maybe
Obama has said that it’s the parents’ job to make sure their children don’t see objectionable things on TV, the internet, etc.; not the government’s. But he’s tried a little too hard to squelch smears against him, so I give him a “Maybe.”

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft. ― Disagree
While he doesn’t want to start drafting folks, he thinks women should also have to sign up for the selective service, which is anything but repealing it. And he’s advocated mandatory community service, too.

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. ― Agree
He says homosexuality is not immoral, so I doubt he’d try to have laws passed against it. I can’t find any evidence of him supporting laws restricting such freedom for other types of people, so I’m giving him an “Agree.”

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs. ― Disagree
Obama’s for decreasing sentences for some drugs, and giving offenders the choice of being sentenced to rehab instead of to jail, but there’s no repealing here.

There should be no National ID card. ― Maybe
This one’s a toughie. There’s nothing about it on Obama’s website, and Google searches on “Obama” and “Real ID”/”National ID” almost unanimously return repostings of this. Obama did vote for the bill which contained the REAL ID, but so did everyone else in the Senate, since it was attached to all kinds of other stuff, so it’s hard to tell. He’s criticized the REAL ID, but on a practical, not ideological basis.

Economic Issues
End “corporate welfare.” No government handouts to business. ― Disagree
Voted for the bailout. Has some reservations, but he did. End of story.

End government barriers to international free trade. ― Maybe
He opposes our current free trade agreements, but isn’t opposed to free trade entirely . . . I think. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security. ― Disagree
“Obama and Biden are strongly opposed to privatizing Social Security.” Can’t get any more forceful than that.

Replace government welfare with private charity. ― Disagree
He wants to give a $500 Tax credit to persons making under $75,000 a year. And hasn’t said anything about decreasing welfare.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more. ― Disagree
Not at all likely. His plan only decreases taxes by 0.3% average. And it’s likely spending will go up, too.

One interesting point is made by Shane Cory (Barr Communications Director). He has some parting words of blame for Ron Paul.

As the campaign wound to a close, it was clear that Barr wouldn’t get close to the $30 million fundraising goal campaign manager Russ Verney set in May, a disappointment that staffers blame in part on former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). “Paul set the liberty movement back a decade by encouraging people to stay in the GOP,” Cory says. “Not that the Republicans planned it, but if they did they couldn’t have planned it any better.”

While I’ve been quite critical of the Barr campaign I’ve also said that there were many things that went wrong that were not under their control. I have no praise for Shane Cory other than to say that in this case I tend to agree with him.

I firmly believe that if Ron Paul chose to run as a Libertarian after losing the GOP nomination as Bob Barr and the Libertarian National Committee wanted back in December of 2007 we’d be looking at a very different electoral map on CNN and other news outlets today. Ron Paul was a great unique unifying figure. His supporters are a wire mesh of far left, far right, and in between. The decisions he made after losing the GOP nomination caused that wire mesh to rip apart.

However, the unity he once fostered is not gone for good. It is just gone for now. I have hope that a new unifying candidate emerges within the next few years to carry the torch of liberty toward the future and all of this divisiveness will be merely history.

reason: But you’d enjoyed the Paul movement (or moment)?

Jillette: I was just thrilled! I love it when people are seeing a point of view that they’ve never seen before. I had people coming to me and explaining RP’s positions in a way that I couldn’t explain them. I loved that! I love listening to somebody talk about liberty so much better than I ever had. I am such a believer in marketplace of ideas. What troubles me most about politics is this feeling that you shouldn’t waste time with anyone but the frontrunners. The fact that we had this little glitch in the system, that people might listen to somebody else who wasn’t at the top of the polls, it just fills me with such incredible joy to think about it. There were people who considered me a nut for not going with one of the two major party candidates who were, all of a sudden, supporting Ron Paul.

The thing is, I don’t think any of libertarian ideas are very far out of actual spirit of our culture. The reason I use the word “nut” positively is that I think a lot of people really do believe in libertarianism, and small government, and they just need to be told that it’s OK. Paul found ways to say talk about it. I don’t think winning or even running a good race was that important. I don’t even think the million-dollar fundraising days were important. What was important was people being able to say in their own words stuff I agree with about individual rights. I think we need somebody that has charisma and clarity to make people think that’s ok. I have always, like the singers and songwriters of country western music, identified with the losers. A lot of people are not like that. A lot of people watch the Olympics to see people pick up medals.

If you’ve never seen Penn and Teller’s Showtime series called “Bullshit!” I can’t recommend it enough. Below is a fine example of their work on flag burning and the Bill of Rights.

The debate explores issues that you haven’t heard much about from the two major party candidates. That is quite refreshing in and of itself. Grab your beverage of choice, sit back and watch the debate below.

This is a fine example of how Bob Barr can win the votes of those disgruntled lifetime GOP’ers.

I have a problem. I’m voting for a third party candidate—Bob Barr. Barr is the Libertarian presidential candidate. My parents, glaring speechlessly and wondering what happened to the young Republican who cried when Bob Dole lost in ‘96, tell me I’m throwing my vote away. I haven’t even made this confession yet to my grandfather, a lifelong “common sense” Republican, but I shudder to think what he’ll say. My other grandfather also cried when Clinton won in ‘96, so he might understand why I’m voting for the man who tried to send “42” back to Arkansas.

This election season, Obamamania is feverishly hot; news stories of women fainting at rallies, pious displays of Obama as the Messiah, and even Obama’s own claims to “stop the sea’s rise” allude to the fact that the Democratic party is obsessively consumed by the cult of personality erected around “The One.” “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” he tells crowds of supporters.

For the GOP, a party I no longer identify with, there is much less excitement. McCain’s not exactly electrifying, and the hype around Sarah Palin has fizzled out. But what’s worse is that the Republican ticket is confirming what the Bush II presidency already established: that to be a Republican these days is to be something different than a conservative.

So to other disaffected conservatives disgusted by the bailout, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, excessive spending, and the Federal Government running roughshod over the states, I offer you an impractical alternative: vote for Bob Barr.

Somewhat ironically (because it comes from a “conservative”) Lohse covers one of Barr’s painful negatives in the eyes of many libertarian voters: His votes for the Patriot Act and for the Iraq War authorization.

However, even the rare principled politician like Barr can be deceived. In the first Bush term he voted for both the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, two votes he describes as his biggest regrets. In his own words, “My vote to authorize the war was a mistake, and I realize it now. The administration gave inaccurate, unsound intelligence. I voted to depose Saddam Hussein—the Bush administration used that resolution for a multi-year occupation of Iraq. Unlike McCain, I don’t appreciate the fact that the administration did a bait and switch; but that bait and switch doesn’t seem to bother him.”

If you know someone weighing a vote for either John McCain or Bob Barr this article could sway them to the Barr side.