2008 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr spoke to this weekend’s 2010 LP Convention. He posted his address online at his website.
Here are excerpts from his address:
Keynote Address Before The National Convention of the Libertarian Party
Delivered By Bob Barr, 2008 Libertarian Party Nominee for President of the United States
At St. Louis, Missouri On Saturday, May 29, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 2:30 PMFellow Libertarians, it is an honor to stand before you today, in 2010, as I did two years ago in accepting the Libertarian Party nomination for President of the United States. In these past two years, many of the consequences which we predicted in 2008 would befall America in the absence of Libertarian Party leadership, have in fact occurred. America’s national debt has ballooned to record and dangerous levels; government spending has risen to levels for which the term “irresponsible” fails to adequately convey the magnitude thereof; our civil liberties, supposed to be guaranteed against government encroachment in our Bill of Rights, continue to be diminished; property rights, understood by us as a fundamental underpinning of a free society, today remain naked in the face of government power; and the sanctity of the right to contract enjoys even less currency today than it did in 2008….
The privileges or immunities clause in the 14th Amendment – intended to protect fundamental rights such as the right to keep and bear arms, belonging to all free men – was artificially and dramatically weakened by an intellectually vapid Supreme Court in 1873’s Slaughterhouse Cases decision. (And there remain to this day justices in that body who pay hollow allegiance to that liberty-debilitating decision.)….
Each time economic rights and powers are taken from the American people, whether by the “Square Deal,” “New Deal,” or the “Great Society,” Atlas’ knees bend a little bit more. Every program that sucks vitality from free enterprise, and which steals from the American people the fruits of their labor, causes the ground to shift beneath Atlas, making it harder still for him to stand and bear the weight of free men on his shoulders….
Relevant Libertarianism means articulating a message using words comprehensible to others who may not be steeped in our movement’s work. What is Relevant Libertarianism?
Relevant Libertarianism tells America’s business – small and large — that their long years of having the regulatory and tax tails of the dog dictate their entire business plan need no longer continue.
Relevant Libertarianism shows American families that control of the education of their children will be once again placed in their hands, not those of government bureaucrats.
Relevant Libertarianism indicates unequivocally that decisions between a patient and a doctor are made between the patient and the doctor, without the intervening and arbitrary filter of so-called “government health care” bureaucrats or, even worse, the IRS.
Relevant Libertarianism promises America’s taxpayers that the country’s oppressive, complex, unfair and unfathomable tax system must and will be dismantled – not all at once or overnight, but that at least the process of dismantling it will begin.
Relevant Libertarianism reminds voters that they can at long last have a real voice for real change in our country’s political present and future.
Relevant Libertarianism clarifies that our system of criminal laws and procedures, which continues to grow and manifest itself far, far beyond those laws that are necessary or even reasonable for a free and ordered society, will be fundamentally reevaluated and reconstituted so as to protect liberty rather than stifling and taking liberty a criminal law “Grace Commission,” so to speak).
Relevant Libertarianism ensures that those laws on the books that are necessary and reasonable to ensure freedom, liberty and a fair and open economic system, are actually enforced consistently and appropriately; and not by creating massive, oppressive, and intrusive regulatory structures every time there is a problem within a particular sector of our economy.
Relevant Libertarianism shouts loud and clear across the land that the days of the Nanny State are over and the re-dawning of the Freedom State are again within the grasp of the American people.
These messages, which already resonate in the hearts of the vast majority of Americans, must be articulated by us through a short, clear and precise platform and agenda that is unequivocal in its enunciation of real-life political freedom. The message must be brought to individuals, businesses and communities across the country by candidates who are articulate and who can and will relate to real-life voters and businesspeople….
Our work will be his hope – America’s hope – for a real rebirth of Liberty in the real world. This is our challenge; this is America’s challenge. If we fail, America fails; and the world will be a far colder, darker place for generations to come. We cannot allow that to happen. Let us commit here, in two thousand and ten — in the year of America’s independence the two-hundred and thirty-fourth – that the Libertarian Party will at long last meet its true potential and destiny in the real world; for real, living Freedom….