The official blog of the Libertarian Party
February 07, 2007
Runnymede, Bush and Habeas Corpus
Former Congressman and current LNC member Bob Barr wrote an article for the AJC outlining how Bush has literally taken our civil liberties back to medieval times. Here's a segment of the article:
Some 792 years ago, in Runnymede, England, a very unhappy King John was forced by a group of barons to sign a document called the "Magna Carta."
Despite the passage of so many centuries since that June day, and notwithstanding the fact that no one save a devoted cartographer could find the "meadow that is called Runnymede" on a modern map, the notion of a "Great Charter," clearly establishing rights of individuals and limiting the power of the governing authority, remains a central underpinning of Western civilization. These ideas form also the very basis of our own representative democracy; that is, until the administration of George W. Bush.
While many provisions in the Magna Carta dealt with parochial interests of barons that have little relevance today, such is not the case with paragraph 39: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land." The eloquence, relevance and importance of these words ring as loudly today as they did nearly 800 years ago.
After finishing the lesson for those who might not be aware of of some of the history and tradition behind one of our most basic civil liberties, Barr went on to explain how Bush has sent us back almost to the dark ages.
It's a good read and worth passing on to others, especially those without strong libertarian inclinations.
Posted by Stephen Gordon at February 7, 2007 10:57 AM
Reader Comments:
I'll grant you, it's a far cry from the rule of law.
But since not one of our presidents has upheld the Constitution in nearly a century, I can't help wondering why anyone expects W. to be any different.
Amen Sam.
I wonder if Mr. Barr has any thoughts as a drug warrior about how many of these rights have been ignored to fight the Drug War?
Rights of due process have been tramped upon allowing the seizure of property of suspected drug dealers without requiring convictions. To fight the war on Drugs the police have virtually carte blanche to search motor vehicles.
There are many examples of these rights being trampled upon in the war on drugs. Does Mr. Barr agree with these actions? If he wants to fight the drug war within the bill of rights then I will applaud him for his principle. But I question if he does. Of course since we are losing the war even with the government trampling on our rights I doubt we will do any better following the constitution.
It is interesting for me to see people villifying Bush as if our presidents and government respected our rights before 2001. Many of the objectionable provisions of the Patriot Act were being used against drug dealers before 9/11. President and congress after president and congress have been eroding our rights for over a century.
True Bush deserves some of the blame but many here act as if he is the sole culprit. To me Nixon, FDR and LBJ are far worse culprits. As libertarians we should not be caught up in the partisan, hate the dummy Bush and his neo-con buddies fervor. Democrats have been eroding our rights over the past 100 years just as much as the Republicans.
Bush is bad but he didn't start the fire. It was always burning since FDR.
John,
Barr appears to be moving in the right direction on the drug war. He still has a long way to go, but I hope he keeps making progress.
Certainly, Bush did not start the war on our liberties, but he has made it far worse.
Nor did it start with FDR. LewRockwell.com points out accurately (and voluminously) how many of the transgressions started out with Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, but even they largely ignore the earlier American history of imperialism.
From the middle passage, slavery and the suppression of the Whiskey rebellion, through the Indian Wars (including Andrew Jackson's genocidal
ethnic cleansing), the naked aggression of the Mexican-American War, and more, the US Empire has been built on injustice from the very beginning - and that includes horrendous transgressions against all form of liberty by the very people that wrote and signed the high-minded words of the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents.
Bush Jr., however, eclipses them all with his uniquely virulent brand of domestic tyranny and international aggression.
Of course, that's not to say that the next Clinton, and the next Bush after her, will not be even far worse - in fact, it's a virtual certainty they will be.
lets dig up calvin coolidge and see if we can get him to run in 08.
Being older than dirt, I have had the opportunity to view 11 Presidents. I have watched the public hate those Presidents who show principle and did very unpopular things such as Truman; and I have watched the public hate the President because every decision was made by figuring out what the polls said. History seems to be favoring the Presidents who showed principle.
President Bush might be doing the things he is doing because he honestly believes we are at war. The war is between Islam and non Islam. Currently, the primary military conflict is going on in Iraq, however, there are conflicts going on in Somalia, Indonesia, Brazil, England, USA, and many other parts of the world.
Now I may not agree with President Bush's ideas, but at least I am grateful that he is being consistent and I have a better idea of how he is going to proceed. That is much better than having people like; Nixon, Carter, Clinton and FDR who had no principles.
Paulie; since you mentioned next potential presidents, here is my announcment. The next president will not be one of the following. John McCain, Rudi Gulliani(sp), Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards.
I am not predicting who will be but these people are out of the running. I hope.
Golferhal, I admire your level of hope, but I'd be surprised if one of those you mentioned were NOT the next president. I hope you're right, for all our sakes.
Nick; it's not hope but pessimism that makes those statements -- not because Obama or Clinton are good candidates, but because the reasons why they will not be elected are essentially bigotted ones. This nation is frankly not ready for a female or "negroid" (I use the phenotypic classification) President. John Edwards is far too left. McCain won't be President because he was a PoW. This was used to assassinate his character before and it'll be used again. Gulliani has **KNOWN** MOB TIES. (Nothing criminal/proveable, but known.)
No, none of those will be President. Quite frankly, I personally am predicting a squeaker of a Republican win for President. Either Obama or Clinton will be on the ticket for POTUS in '08, this is essentially assured. Either one guarantees a loss.
IF Bush & Cheney both bite the big one sometime this year, this all gets thrown up in the air.
I predict an Electoral College victory for the Democrats, for the simple reason of the total Republican collapse in Ohio. The Republicans cannot win without Ohio.
I agree many people will not vote for Obama for bigoted reasons but I think those same people weren't voting Democrat anyway, for the same bigoted reasons, but it hurts him that he has a Muslim name. Clinton could win the nomination on money alone. Whichever one receives the nomination will get their 33% from Democrats and then the 30 or so percent of swing voters will decide based on the opponent. I think McCain is a dead duck. Guiliani could win if he wins the nomination which I think will be harder than the general election for him. Edwards, I just don't think wnough people care how far left he is. He could win just because he's not the other guy. I think this whole thing is still wide open. Someone will eliminate themselves because they say something stupid a la John Kerry. This whole election could do wonders for the LP because of the polarization we are already seeing. We need to strike while the iron is hot and get some advertising out there. It may hurt us that Ron Paul is running since he won't win the Republican nomination and he said he won't run on another party's ticket. Kubby sounds good to me, but who outside the LP has heard of him? If he makes some serious noise that would be great, but aside from this site I haven't seen a single news story or article about any third party folks.
Nick, lots more people outside the LP have heard of Kubby than in the LP. Just for starters he announced his camapign to a crowd of 50,000 (which I believe is the official estimate, so it was probably a lot more) at Seattle Hempfest. There's aren't even close to that many LP members in the whole country.
But of course that was just one hempfest in one city. It's not like all the pot legalization supporters were all there. There's probably 50 to 100 times as many people active in the legalization movement as there are in the LP. Since it's not a single organization, the number is not that easy to nail down, but that's approximately the level of activity. And people in the legalization movement most certainly know who Steve Kubby is.
There were hundreds and hundreds of news reports, including major media, about Kubby as he played an integral role in spearheading the historic California medical marijuana initiative, which led to all the others that have passed around the country and the many more that have yet to pass.
This is now an issue with widespread solid overwhelming majority approval among the general non-libertarian public in every region of the country!
And as he was viciously and maliciously persecuted by the government after he helped pass this initiative and ran for Governor of California as a Libertarian, and forced to flee for his life to Canada for over five years, and as he came back under duress as the Canadian government caved to US pressure and denied human rights asylum, there were numerous news reports.
And as he fought for his life in jail without access to his life-saving medicine, which has allowed him to not just survive, but live an incredibly productive and rich life for several decades, even though no one else with his condition has lived even five years after diagnosis.
Thanks in no small part to our own Steve Gordon, at one point Steve Kubby became the number one news story on the blogosphere, which saved his life in jail as he was allowed to take Marinol, and able to raise enough money to afford it.
Yes, all that did get covered and we have media archives with hundreds of stories about it.
http://www.lastfreevoice.com/2007/01/03/kubby-in-the-news/
And that does not even cover 2006, a huge news year for Steve, or 1998 Governor's race and prior.
Of course, it's very, very, very early and we are just starting to make an attempt to seek the LP's nomination. There will be way more publicity coming. It's a bandwagon, and early effort pays off far more down the line than the same level of effort later. Remember EMILY - Early Money Is Like Yeast. And not just money; volunteer efforts and in kind contributions are even far more valuable than money.
Think of it as like an avalanche, but going uphill. If you help us in any way - big or small - now, it will pay off in a big way as we gather momentum later.
Be the change you want in the world. Join our camapign.
Since not everyone here reads the other threads
you can do that at
http://kubby2008.com/
Or better yet if you like what you see let me know by dropping an email to kubby2008 at gmail dot com.
Golferhal
"President Bush might be doing the things he is doing because he honestly believes we are at war. The war is between Islam and non Islam. Currently, the primary military conflict is going on in Iraq, however, there are conflicts going on in Somalia, Indonesia, Brazil, England, USA, and many other parts of the world."
I don't believe he is actually that retarded. Not that he is nearly bright enough to have graduated, or even been accepted to, Yale were it not for who his dad was, but he is not actually that mentally deficient.
And I don't mean that those of you who buy into this nonsense are all mentally deficient,
since you are not around the seat of power as the lies used to dupe this country into initially supporting the wars abroad and the war on freedom at home in their name are actually being cooked up. But he is. So he knows better.
"Now I may not agree with President Bush's ideas, but at least I am grateful that he is being consistent and I have a better idea of how he is going to proceed. That is much better than having people like; Nixon, Carter, Clinton and FDR who had no principles."
I suppose you would say Hitler and Stalin were consistent. But I would not find them acceptable leaders. Nor do I think Bush is acceptable.
He has taken authoritarianism to a dangerous new level in this country, and he is not finished yet.
Things can, and probably will, get a lot worse. There is no guarantee he will relinquish power peacefully.
But, if there is a next President after him, it will probably be Hillary Clinton, and she will probably be even worse than him. Women are a slight majority, so anyone who thinks she can't win is wrong.
If Hillary Clinton wins two terms as president, that will mean that Bushes and Clintons will have "run" the country for nearly three decades.
Screw that. Certainly there are more ethical, intelligent people to choose from. Besides, I am tired of southerners being president.
Scott:
1) you forgot to count the Reagan years. Bush Sr. was more in charge than Reagan was.
2) Hillary Clinton is not a Southerner.
She grew up midwestern (Illinois), went to college in the northeast, and she did live in the South during the 1970s and 1980s, but since 1992 has lived mainly in the Northeast (I'll count DC as Northeast, although it is actually Mid-Atlantic) and represents a northeastern state in the Senate.
How's that a southerner?
Oh my gosh, I was just reading the Kubby2008 web site and he proposes executive order 13420 as his first act, to legalize marijuana. The number itself is relevant. 13 to mean nix, and 420 as stoner slang for "get high." For example, University of Michigan has a long tradition of the great SMOKE OUT (or whatever they call it, I've never attended myself) on April 20th. 4/20. It is also the time of day factory workers light up after work, 4:20. Bwahahah, he has a sense of humor and I'll vote for that.
420 is the police code for illegal marijuana possession so 13420 would be to nix illegal marijuana possession. That would be the biggest party this country has ever seen, and probably the least productive work day, too, but hey, freedom deserves a party.
420 is not police code for pot, that's a myth, but a time after high school lets out when stoners get together to smoke.
The reason for 420 becoming stoner slang is lost in "clouds" of time. Nobody knows the true reason. Of course I'm happy that he is for the legalization of Marijuana, but shouldn't every Libertarian candidate?
P- We shouldn't be using high school stoners as an example. People who would have no problem with adults using marijuana certainly don't want children to be able to use it (myself included). If we are seen as encouraging teenagers to get high it will do nothing good for us.
Paulie- as a Reaganite I am very offended when people say George HW Bush was in control - he wasn't. Bush was opposed to most of the cornerstones of Reagan's platform and presidency. Bush called Reagan's tax cuts "voodoo economics" - yes it was Bush who coined that phrase that socialists used for the next 12+ years. Bush was a diplomat of the old school "detente" theory of dealing with the Soviet Union and called Reagan's strategy "dangerous."
Bush was a "Rockefeller Republican" or a liberal one. Meaning that when the Democrats would come up with a huge new socialist program he would support a smaller version of the same thing.
Even after eight years of being Reagan's VP didn't bring him around. When running in 1988 he said he would bring about a "kinder, gentler america" an obvious slap at Reagan.
The idea posited by the socialist media that Reagan was just a pretty package being run by others is false if you study the man's history. He started expounding on his philosophy in the early '60's on General Electric Theatre on Television. Then he became governor of California.
During his administration of California and previous to 1980 he wrote many opinion pieces for conservative periodicals. He also did many radio broadcasts that he wrote himself.
Whatever you think of the man's policies, he was the impetus behind them. Bush was opposed to almost all of the important things achieved in his administration. He was selected as VP as a sop to the "moderate republicans."
I disagree that Bush is the worst ever when it comes to rights. Nixon and LBJ are the ones who escalated the Drug War and started the snowball of rights violations that continues to this day.
I know that the erosion of rights precedes FDR. I just use him because he is the one that got socialism entrenched into our government. I think true serious reform was made impossible the moment politicians could use tax money to buy votes with handouts. The people won't vote for reform because though they want to get rid of your program they don't want to get rid of their own.
Let me put an important question to you; Do any of you think we can change the outlook of this country without first changing the way the criminal justice system uses the private corporations of the BAR associations of the states to advance their agenda?
Do you know that the BAR examination is a total scam? OK, how could you know that unless you were part of the scam. Just a few lines to let you know the system is far from ideal. Corruption abounds!!!
Coach Jim:
You are correct!
Paulie, is that YOUR web site?
No, I'm just one of the bloggers there.
Stuart Richards started it, I think we have about eight or ten bloggers now. We're slowly putting back together the online community that was at Hammer of Truth, since it has been taken down and Liberty Mix has been delayed we decided not to wait. We're not techies like SVD and SG but the important part is the people and the content, and we can have that without all the tech stuff. We started out on wordpress and then a volunteer has helped us move up a notch to our our domain and just a few techie add-ons.
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I'll grant you, it's a far cry from the rule of law.
But since not one of our presidents has upheld the Constitution in nearly a century, I can't help wondering why anyone expects W. to be any different.
Posted by: Sam Orton at February 8, 2007 04:50 PM