Here’s why I’m voting for McCain.
I speak here as someone who studied libertarian philosophy under John Hospers, the first ever LP candidate for president, and as someone who voted for the libertarian candidate in both of the last two elections. It was easy in the last two elections because you had a big-government big-spending liberal on the democratic and republican ballot. But this year is different.
For one thing, the LP is not what it used to be. Look at the issues of immigration, and marriage rights. Libertarianism used to be virtual open borders based on free market principles. Now, the Barr website on this issue is all the thinly disguised bigotry that you get from the anti-immigration right wing crazies, with all the hand-wringing about English-only and welfare fraud etc.
Marriage rights is one of the more fundamental tests of basic libertarian principles on the current public agenda. Its a matter of free choice, equal protection of the laws, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state all rolled into one. But the Barr website will do nothing to promote equal marriage rights. Instead, its the misleading retreat into ‘states rights’ crap that we unfortunately also get in lip service from McCain. Plus on the Barr site, his position essentially amounts to an endorsement of the Defense of Marriage federal legislation position that allows states to ignore the full faith and credit clause.
I’m disappointed in McCain’s stated position on the anti-marriage amendment (Prop 8), but sort of understand where he’s coming from politically. But note that when it counted with the federal DOM Amendment (which, unlike Prop 8, would have been procedurally and substantively sound to actually ban gay marriage), McCain cast a key vote against, when the Senate vote against was only 50-48.
I spent some time on Project Vote Smart and found a couple of key issues that separate the candidates. One was the George W. Bush energy-subsidy give-away big-spending bill under the “SAFE” Act of 2001, then later in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Barr voted in favor of the SAFE Act giveaways, while McCain voted “no.” So Barr is only recently born again on his supposed opposition to energy subsidies, but McCain was there to put his vote in the right place (which he did again in 2005, when Barr was out of office).
Another telling vote was an amendment to an immigration bill in 1998 to increase the number of H-1B visas (professional workers). The H-1B issue is one of the more frustrating aspects to American immigration law. There are a lot of educated professionals ready to legally immigrate who would make excellent, contributing members of our economy. The issue split Republicans, and it is one of the better ways to separate out the anti-immigrant bigots because you lose all pretense over protecting public benefit coffers or the why-don’t-they-wait-in-line b.s. Then-congressman Barr, like our own Dana Rohrabacher, voted against the amendment, while then-Senator McCain voter in favor.
On immigration in general, the best test I could find is a rabid anti-immigration group that with only a slight sinse of irony calls itself “Americans for Better Immigration”, and really means “Americans for No Immigration.” A low number is a good thing if you favor a sane immigration policy that integrates new workers as the blessing that they are. Here are the most recent available scores for the Presidential candidates, with our two local congressional representatives thrown in for the sake of comparison:
Barr – 96
Rohrabacher – 94
Sanchez – 32
Obama – 28
McCain – 18
In other words, Barr is in practice an even bigger anti-immigration hawk than Dana!
For economic and tax policy I took the ratings of the National Taxpayer’s Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. NTU is as follows:
McCain – 88
Rohrabacher – 75
Barr – 74
Obama – 16
Sanchez – 14
And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is:
McCain – 100
Barr – 87
Rohrabacher – 75
Sanchez – 60
Obama – 33
Bottom line, if you care about taxes and spending, McCain is a much better candidate than Obama, and is even a better candidate than the “real” Barr. And if you care about a reasonable immigration policy, then McCain is substantially better than Barr. If you use marriage rights as a socially-liberal litmus test, McCain still beats out Barr.
So why would I vote for Barr?
A 64 year old homeless woman stop by yesterday and registered to vote.
She had told me before that if Clinton was nominated as the democratic choice, she would vote this year.
I was a little surprised she registered as a GOP’er, she is another one in California for the A-team.
Ron –
Those scores include the period in which Barr was a hard-core Reep. He’s since adopted a much more sane and responsible platform. As to your complaints on more current issues, you are oversimplifying. For instance, DOMA protects states rights, which is a Libertarian cornerstone. Barr may not be the traditional Lib (his running mate certainly isn’t), but isn’t that the point? The new Libs would actually like to get elected to some seats and no longer be looked at as being on the fringe.
cook –
‘A-team?’ Why are they called that? Because McCain is an angry asshat with an angle on anglo-saxons? See: RNC.
The real ‘A-team’ was multi-racial! Oh, and did I mention it would be really sweet if they cast James Caan as Hannibal Smith in the upcoming revival movie?! 😛
SMS
States rights is not a libertarian position. Government policy is right or wrong, regardless of whether it comes from state, local, or federal government. States-rights is a position that people slide into on a disingenous basis whenever they perceive the result of state vs. federal politics to be in their favor.
It is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals with respect to marriage rights, whether it comes from the state or local government. Every state owes all its citizens equal protection of the its laws, even homosexuals. Its in the 14th Amendment. Plus its a good idea.
Ron –
Calling a states’ rights position ‘disingenuous’ in such a manner is what’s disingenuous. Many of us would actually like to see a United States in which the citizens have a choice in the laws they must follow and the social norms they want to accept.
For instance, I’m a member of the LGBT community so I probably wouldn’t want to live in the deep south, but I have no desire to force anyone else to live by my own ethics and morals especially if I’m in California and they’re in Alabama. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to government which is why the Constitution gives the states the right to pass their own laws in the first place.
SMS
Sarah, the states do not have the right to pass unconstitutional laws and thats the US Constitution not the state constitution.
Would your theory allow slavery in Alabama but not in California where we are enlightened?
As much as I would love to vote for Bob Barr, I am going to be casting my vote for Senator John McCain.
I voted for Ron Paul during the primaries, but after much thought and debate, I have decided that a vote for Barr is a vote for Obama.
Cook,
was the lady who registered to vote the lady in the picture who dislikes Bustamante?
anonmys –
‘Sarah, the states do not have the right to pass unconstitutional laws and thats the US Constitution not the state constitution.
Would your theory allow slavery in Alabama but not in California where we are enlightened?‘
Well, no of course not. The U.S. Constitution requires ratification of 2/3 of the states, which is a pretty difficult majority of votes to obtain, thereby protecting the rights of the majority. Obviously there was a national consensus that slavery should be abolished.
However, Congress should not be allowed to pass federal title codes to restrict the ability of states to make their own legal determinations within the letter of the U.S. Constitution.
SMS
Ron and Thomas,
McCain has NO CHANCE of winning California, so why waste your vote on him?
As for Barr, yes he is slightly more anti-immigration than most Libertarians, but it’s not like the GOP is any better. Even if McCain wants to help immigrants his party won’t let him!
And you should not hold Barr’s record against him. He has seen the light. So did I. People CAN learn and change their positions. Whether McCain can remains to be determined – what we do know is that he has voted with Bush over 90% of the time. No bueno!
Art,
When I voted for libertarians in the past I always said that the only way to waste your vote is to use it on your second choice. Voting is your best chance to express your opinion so you should express it as accurately as possible.
McCain has an outside chance in California. He needs your demographic (pro-busines Hispanics, the real future of the Republican party in California), and he needs women upset over Hilary’s treatment by the dems, and he needs the big unrepresented middle of Schwarzenegger voters who will be put off by Obama’s extreme liberalism.
Sarah,
I’m glad to be getting to know you on this blog. You seem like an interesting person to disagree with. If we all thought the same thing there would never be anything to talk about.
I’ve thought about ‘states rights’ for a long time. In the Civil Rights Movement days, it was code for opposition to civil rights legislation which came from the federal government and was being imposed on the Southern states with practically a new Civil War. To me it would be more honest to say, “I support freedom of association so I have problems with Civil Rights laws” rather than to avoid the association vs. freedom from prejudice dilemma and say “I support States’ rights to make their own laws”.
Some of the same people who get sentimental over “states’ rights” in the Civil Rights or welfare context will without blinking jump on the federal tort reform bandwagon to address ‘lawsuit abuse’ when tort law has always been a matter of state law.
In dealing with local-law NIMBY’s (Not-In-My-Backyard), I’ve developed a theory of inverse oppression depending on the size of government, which is contrary to the old libertarian assumption that local government is kind and gentle because the people are choosing their own laws. An abstract commitment to property rights evaporates when its your own neighborhood. From federal to state to county to city governments, the smaller you get the more likely you are to get in-your-face, restrictive rules, leading ultimately to the most Nazi-like, totalitarian regime on earth: The “Homeowners’ Association.”