Liberalism, socialism, and conservatism

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?
     George Orwell (1949) 1984

There is such confusion in the American language, making political discussion increasingly difficult. In this story one word stands out, "liberalism".

Somehow in the United States, this wonderful word has been hijacked, its oldspeak meaning thrown into the memory hole, preventing people from thinking clearly for lack of a better word.

It has become a mere euphemism in this country. This wonderful word, liberalism... a mere euphemism.

How do you explain it when people who call themselves "liberal" advocate socialism ? Conservatives love this since then they can drag the word "liberal" through the mud of socialist disasters.

The end result? Well, Trey Parker and Matt Stone summed it up quite elegantly in the South Park episode Douche and Turd, which aired just before the 2004 election. We are not alone. There are Egyptian and Russian variations on this theme, where people are presented a false choice between two factions.

So what's one to do? How can liberal parties grow in the United States? How can liberals argue for liberalism without a word to hang their hat on, without a word to have their conversations with, without a word to think with?

Back in 1955, Dean Russell from the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) saw a way out. He claimed the "good and honorable word 'libertarian'" for liberals to use ... to avoid confusion. To good advantage... for a while. Notice how Russell clearly defined "libertarian" to mean what the word "liberal" once meant.

So, as you may have noticed, this took off. The word libertarian has entered the lexicon. Everything is fine, right? Everyone understands that libertarians are for both economic and personal freedom, the Nolan chart, yada, yada, yada...

Well, not exactly. If you call yourself a libertarian, you now risk being confused for an anarchist. You're asked, "Don't you believe in government?"

How did this happen? Liberals believe in limited government. Liberty and anarchy are distinct. Liberals argue for the rule of law, not the rule of men.

Russell, himself, distinguished between anarchism and libertarianism in his book Anything That's Peaceful. Brian Doherty, senior editor at Reason magazine, writes in his book on the history of the libertarian movement, "[Dean] Russell ... declared--both in private letters and in a Freeman article--that anarchists were positive enemies of human freedom, whether they knew it or not." (Radicals for Capitalism, p. 320)

The experience of Russia, with its lack of rule of law, speaks volumes. So do fatwas.

Are we to await, yet again without word, for anarchists, now clothing themselves with a liberty word, to drag liberalism through the muck of their tax-free insanity?

I say no.

But what is there to do then?

Fortunately, there is the rest of the world. If you just peer over the borders, you will find that the word liberalism lives on happily in its meaningful sense.

Proof?

Read the essay, Analysis of Conservative, Socialist and Liberal Paradigms, by Werner Hoyer, in The Liberal Aerogramme, Issue 46, July 2003, pp. 28-32, a publication of the Liberal International. I just discovered this organization last night via Gregory Yavlinkski's website. Their virtual hall of fame of liberal thinkers includes Hayek, Constant, Nozick, Mises, Popper, Bastiat, Rand, Humboldt, Wollstonecraft, and Williams.

Werner writes,

For the liberal, the central value is "freedom for the individual"--which explains why choice, tolerance, rule of law, civil and political rights, property and entrepreneurship are so important for liberals.

...

[A]ll liberals share a common denominator: they believe in putting freedom and the individual first. Another distinguishing feature of liberalism is that it distrusts decisions made on behalf of collective entities, whether these entities are nations, classes..., castes, religious groups..., or whatever. All such decisions tend towards arbitrariness in that they ignore differences within such an entity, overlook individual needs and create new injustices.

Fortunately the world is a big place, and liberalism lives on.


Update (Mar 7, 2007): Brian Doherty has written an excellent article today Libertarianism: Past and Prospects, which is germane here. The anarchism I oppose is that which is oblivious to the art of a constitution and excuses the rule of men.


Update (Mar 9, 2007): In response to Brian Doherty's article, Brink Lindsey has written an excellent essay Libertarians in an Unlibertarian World, in which he faces reality head on and concludes by calling for a "new political identity", "a genuinely liberal identity". Lindsey writes,

What needs to be developed is a set of ideas that can serve as the basis for a new political identity. Not a strictly libertarian identity – there simply aren’t enough strictly defined libertarians to base a mass political movement on. Rather, a genuinely liberal identity – one that brings together “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” voters from across the current left-right spectrum. One that recognizes a more expansive role for government than committed libertarians would like, but which nonetheless supports both economic and personal liberty. Here, then, is the way forward as I see it: to articulate an appropriately inclusive political vision that puts freedom at the center of its commitments.

This sounds a lot like Werner.

However, if unqualified, this approach is fraught with danger, in particular when you open the flood gates to "a more expansive role for government".

Principled lines must be drawn, where the presumption of liberty is not only supported, but insisted upon.

Update (Apr 9, 2007): Here's an entertaining outreach introduction to liberalism by Daniel Tourre of the Alternative Libérale in France. In it he distinguishes between liberalism, socialism, and conservatism, as I do. I particularly like how he starts it off with this wonderful Magritte painting La condition Humaine.

Amazing Change

You can be an abolitionist now. You can start by signing a petition. A year ago I read the book Understanding Global Slavery by Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves, a partner in this effort.



I can't wait to see the movie Amazing Grace, just released.

Imagery of a Free Pirate

This is a Free Pirate.

It represents a liberal who opposes intellectual monopoly.

It represents a liberal who opposes monopoly grants in general.

It represents a liberal who believes in the Declaration of Independence.

The use of the pirate motif is ironic.

Supporters of intellectual monopoly dismiss liberals' critiques by calling them "pirates", putting a pirate hat on them with all that connotes, a lack of respect for rights, a lack of respect for property, a lack of due process, anarchy, etc. Following the lead of the Swedish Pirate Party, a free pirate takes this term of opprobrium and adopts it. And so there is the juxtaposition of that symbol of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, carrying the Declaration of Independence, with a pirate hat.

So actually... paraphrasing René Magritte,

Ceci n'est pas un pirate libre.

This is not a Free Pirate.

It is a caricature of a liberal, meant to discredit her.

As did the Levellers in 1647^[1], a free pirate ingeniously confesses to be a pirate, though the true and real pirates are those who hijack liberalism^[2], be they socialists, conservatives, or anarchists, marauding the rule of law, replacing it with the rule of men.

Whoa! Let's back up. Way too serious...

Part of this pirate thing is just meant to be fun. Think Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Let's examine some of the symbols.

First, there's the pirate hat. A free pirate supports natural and constitutional rights passionately, as in the Bill of Rights. Despite her love of life, the grandees throw a pirate hat on her head, painting a caricature for others to see, with a skull and crossbones. What does she do? In a fit of irony, she dons the hat herself. She adopts it. She revels in the disarticulation of their disparagement.

Then there's the hook. It symbolizes the disabilities Lady Liberty suffers these days, as she seemingly effortlessly holds up the torch of The Enlightenment.

Finally and most importantly, there's the sea of rights a free pirate sails. Its color is sea green in honor of the Levellers, who inspired the Declaration of Independence and wrote in 1649,

That we are for Government and against Popular Confusion, we conceive all our actions declare, when rightly considered, our aim having bin all along to reduce it as near as might be to perfection, and certainly we know very well the pravity and corruption of mans heart is such that there could be no living without it; and that though Tyranny is so excessively bad, yet of the two extreames, Confusion is the worst: Tis somewhat a strange consequence to infer that because we have laboured so earnestly for a good Government, therefore we would have none at all, Because we would have the dead and exorbitant Branches pruned, and better sciens grafted, therefore we would pluck the Tree up by the roots.

Yet thus have we been misconceived, and misrepresented to the world, under which we must suffer, till God sees it fitting in his good time to cleer such harsh mistakes, by which many, even good men keep a distance from us.^[3]

Credit:

This artwork was created by chengan800, expressly for this website. I added the sea green.

For more sketches by the artist, please visit the Frenetic Pen Project.

Notes:

1. ↑ Anonymous (1647) A Whip for the present House of Lords, or the Levellers Levelled, pp. 2-3.


2. ↑ Alain Laurent (2006) Le libéralisme américain : Histoire d'un détournement


3. ↑ John Lilburn, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, and Richard Overton (1649) A Manifestation. Reprinted by A.L. Morton (1976, editor) Freedom in Arms: A Selection of Leveller Writings, p. 253.

Open-Source Software - article by Boldrin and Levine

Michele Boldrin and David Levine have written an excellent article for The Freeman, entitled Open-Source Software: Who Needs Intellectual Property?. They write,

The market for open-source software—uncopyrighted, freely reproducible computer programs—is not well understood by economists. A central source of surprise is that innovation can thrive in a market without traditional intellectual property (IP). But as we argued in a 2005 unpublished paper, “Perfectly Competitive Innovation,” as a matter of theory there is no reason to believe that monopoly power through IP is needed for innovation. The market for open-source software is the poster child for this perspective.

Read more...

Hey hipsters, liberty is the new left

It was bound to happen. Libertarian is the new left.


Decentralization defines this new spectrum. Decentralization and liberalization are our best defense against those who would take us down the road to serfdom. Isn't that the great lesson of the 20th century? Yes, yes, in so many ways, but ...

Wait! Just one question.

Looking at this diagram, wouldn't anarchy be on the left?

No, I'd say... it's somewhere on the right.

Constitutional law, grounded in the American Declaration of Independence, with its presumption of liberty, with its limited powers, with its mixed republic, with its elections and juries, with its federalism, with its measured taxation, would stand to the left. True progress comes from the respect each of us has for a certain sphere of innocence and independent action that attaches to every person in his or her individual life and social interactions. The rights in this sphere are equal, innumerable, and inalienable. They do not conflict. They are natural. They are neutral. Creative people thrive in this freedom and build the world without having to ask permission. The Declaration of Independence is far left. It calls for a revolution in our thinking, in our culture, of which we have barely scratched the surface. The Constitution, in its art, merely tries to measure up.

As for the rest of the spectrum, amid the legal anarchy, you might find semblances of law. Perfunctory law would lie somewhere in the middle, going through the motions. Zombie law would patrol on the right, dead yet walking, and arbitrary.

Liberty and anarchy are distinct and opposed, as are liberty and collectivism. If you think libertarianism means anarchism and no taxes, then you can call me a liberal.

Whatever you call it when someone says, "Hey, liberty's deck," that thingamajig is the new left. Liberalization defines the new spectrum. Yes, then I'd agree.

Liberty is the new left.

Source for diagram: A political spectrum that makes sense by Jim Ostrowski.

UPDATE: Little Venice, as it slides towards legal anarchy and little dictatorship, takes its rightful place on this spectrum.

• Chávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators by Simon Romero, New York Times.


• Chavez to Decree Supermarket Law, Associated Press, published by Forbes.


• Chavez threat to seize food shops, BBC News


• Chavez to rule by decree, legislature says, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, published by Monsters & Critics (note comments)


• Venezuelan faces fine for satire, by Christopher Toothacher, AP, published by the San Jose Mercury News (so come again, which way is the horse on Venezuela's coat-of-arms facing?)


• Chavez's New Policies Divide Venezuela, PBS's Newshour, Feb 13, 2007

According to Venezuela's 1999 Bolivarian Constitution,

Artículo 114. El ilícito económico, la especulación, el acaparamiento, ... y otros delitos conexos, serán penados severamente de acuerdo con la ley.

According to an unofficial translation available at the website for the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United States of America, this translates to,

Article 114: Economic crime, speculation, hoarding, ... and other related offenses, shall be punished severely in accordance with law.

Here we have some conflicted commentary on PBS's Chavez report, by a team caught up in the old political spectrum.

• Chavez's Venezuela, The New Standard

So last century.

Update (Dec 6, 2007): Reality starts to hit, according to this report on Newshour with Jim Lehrer.



Reference:
Solonian Journal - On Rights

Why I am an Abolitionist

In the debate on how best to cut back the weeds of intellectual monopoly that entwine us, there are reformers, and there are abolitionists. I am an abolitionist.

The fledgling Pirate Party of the United States has not yet decided on its position, whether it is to be a party of reformers, abolitionists, or both.

The debate swirls upon the Pirate Party's "Points of Unity", which are its core principles, few in number, to which all board members of this pirate party must subscribe according to Section 2, Clause a, of the Proposal on Board Members.

On November 6, 2006, I wrote a small objection. The next day this objection was nearly ignored. Heart racing, I rose to defend my position.

[20:43:31] <nbx909> what about this objection
[20:44:06] <Gamer8585> its a radical proposal from the party fringe. I say deny it.
[20:44:46] <nbx909> i motion to dismiss this objection since it doesn't have enough support
[20:44:51] <Anon075> hi, I'm the objector. Actually the Swedish Pirate Party advocates the abolition of patents, too.
[20:44:52] <AdamG> well. How do you deny an objection? Has that happened before?
[20:45:02] <AdamG> Hello Anon075
[20:45:05] <Anon075> Hi
[20:45:07] <nbx909> hello
[20:45:11] <nbx909> good timing
[20:45:16] <AdamG> that's true, PPS does advocate the abolition of patents
[20:45:23] <Anon075> Jefferson advocated it, too
[20:45:24] <AdamG> That doesn't mean they are right
[20:45:33] <AdamG> Doesn't mean he's right either :)
[20:45:51] <Anon075> I may not be right, but should I be excluded?

Since then, the small objection has grown. From small seeds... And now I'm not alone. Prof. David K. Levine has contributed.

This is my objection. This is why I am an abolitionist.

Casey's Objection

My position
I would not be able to agree with the points on patent and copyright, since I favor the abolition of intellectual monopolies. I view the Intellectual Monopoly Clause of the US Constitution as a defect.
...

I'd recommend that the points of unity be agreeable to copyright reformers, copyright abolitionists, patent reformers, and patent abolitionists. Some might actually characterize my position as a copyright reformer instead of as a copyright abolitionist, since I believe in a right to attribution, which could be regulated much like copyright. I do believe copyright and attribution to be distinct, and so consider myself an abolitionist.
...

I urge support for Casey on this point. I've added material below explaining why patent and copyright are an intrinsically bad idea. It is possible to have principled disagreement on this point. I would urge the point of agreement to be that things have gone too far - that is, we agree that improvements need to be made. Does the party need to take a stand also against abolition? Would it not make more sense to be agnostic on this point? There are many of us who support abolition, but we support also sensible changes in existing law.
added by David K. Levine
[Professor of Economics at Washington University]
22 November 2006

Argument against intellectual monopoly
As I wrote on the fly in the IRC meeting (Logs11-07-06) in response to AdamG's question "What's your argument for no IP at all?",

I believe there is a natural right to imitate. That's the deontological reason. Then there is the utilitarian reason that it fosters cartels. Jefferson believed strongly that the general principle of forbidding monopolies was paramount. I could go on. There's also another book called Information Feudalism^[1] that explains how patent and copyright are ways in which this country bullies poor, developing countries.

There are other points I would add, now that time permits.

I also believe there are natural rights to teach and quote. Practically speaking, the right to teach with free, unlimited quotation is one of the most important, essential moves we can make to really help the poor of the world.

Competition is also important to drive a social conscience in companies. Say there's a company, a big company, that caves into China's demands for censorship. People should be able to compete with that company by imitating it in all the dimensions of its business except for the censorship, if they feel strongly about that. In economics, this is called free entry^[2].

In the real world, complex patent thickets have become an obstacle to free entry. Innocence, in principle, should be simple.

Finally, the ultimate goal would be to liberate philosopher Karl Popper's World 3^[3][4] and keep it free. Yes, this would be a Third World Liberation Front^[5] :-) This would ensure the most precious natural right we possess, the right to criticize. For those unfamiliar with Popper's idea of objective knowledge, here's a quote^[6],

By "world 1" I mean what is usually called the world of physics, of rocks, and trees and physical fields of forces. By "world 2" I mean the psychological world, the world of feelings of fear and of hope, of dispositions to act, and of all kinds of subjective experiences.

By "world 3" I mean the world of the products of the human mind. Although I include works of art in world 3 and also ethical values and social institutions (and this, one might say, societies), I shall confine myself largely to the world of scientific libraries, to books, to scientific problems, and to theories, including mistaken theories.

Elsewhere, Popper writes^[7],

The evolution of language and, with it, of the world 3 of the products of the human mind allows a further step: the human step. It allows us to dissociate ourselves from our own hypotheses, and to look upon them critically. While an uncritical animal may be eliminated together with its dogmatically held hypotheses, we may formulate our hypotheses, and criticize them. Let our conjectures, our theories, die in our stead! We may still learn to kill our theories instead of killing each other. If natural selection has favored the evolution of the mind for the reason indicated, then it is perhaps more than a utopian dream that one day may see the victory of the attitude (it is the rational or the scientific attitude) of eliminating our theories, our opinions, by rational criticism, instead of eliminating each other.

Perhaps the more we hinder the former, the more we foster the latter. This is one reason it's so important, so imperative to keep World 3 free.

How do people get paid?
I don't know, but as I said in the IRC meeting (Logs11-07-06), "The market has many ways." One person's imagination won't necessarily predict where the marketing people will find a way. Much of it will be by trial and error. But here I go anyway...
In a parallel universe, not far from our own, I go to iTunes and subscribe to the South Park season, much like we can now do for the Colbert Report with a Multi-Pass. Only there's a twist. If there's not enough interest, there's no new South Park season. Does this sound far-fetched? Seems pretty normal to me.

If I may add here. The bottom line is that they do get paid. The situation with patent and copyright is different, and in both cases there are a great many ways of getting paid. The problem is that there is a seemingly compelling theory of why people won't get paid - without IPR no one needs to pay because consumers will prefer to wait until it is available for free rather than pay the creator. There are two defects in this argument, one most relevant to patent, one to copyright. In the case of patent, the argument ignores the property right that exists without IPR, the property right in the first copy. Unless someone pays for the first copy, the innovator has no reason to make known the innovation. The right to go first is extremely valuable in fact. It is easy to debate the theory on either side. But the facts are pretty clear: there is no evidence that patents increase innovation, and plentiful evidence they do not. Two particularly good sources: Lerner's study [1] of 150 years of data on patents and innovation, and the careful study of the software industry by Bessen and Hunt [2] showing that patents reduced rather than increased innovation. Basically, while patents increase the return from innovation, they increase the cost due the need to acquire IPRs in order to innovate. So from a theoretical standpoint, patents can either increase or decrease innovation, depending on which effect dominates. In software it seems it is the latter; in general, it seems that it is something of a wash. It is important here to recognize that in addition to the effect on innovation patents have an impact on the usefulness of innovation. Hence, to justify patents from an economic point of view, not only must they increase innovation, they must increase innovation substantially enough to offset the other costs. The evidence is strong that they do not.

Turning to copyright, there is again no evidence that copyright serves to increase new creations. Simply looking at the time-series of copyright changes against the number of copyrights shows this pretty clearly - see for example my work with Boldrin [3]. The best comparative study is the book by Scherer Quarternotes and Banknotes documenting the fact that copyright had little or no effect on the output of classical music. The best pro-copyright argument is one of "now things are different because the electronic reproduction is so amazingly fast and cheap." This argument also is defective. First, it is the amount you can earn relative to the cost of production that matters - the same technology that makes electronic reproduction so amazingly fast and cheap also makes the cost of production amazingly cheap. Second, it ignores the potential for selling complementary items. The obvious examples are recorded music increases the demand for the creators live performances. So there is a perfectly viable model where recorded music is given away for free as advertising for the expensive concerts where the creator makes his living. The working example of this is the open-source software music, where the software is generally not only free as in freedom, but also free as in beer, with the profit coming from the sale of consulting services.
added by David K. Levine
[Professor of Economics at Washington University],
10 November 2006.

Additional Materials

• A summary of the principles of a Free Pirate.
  [added by AdamG]
  
  
• Madison's speech about the Bill of Rights
  [added by AdamG]
  
  
• Against Intellectual Property
  [added by AdamG]
  
  
...
• Reds with Suits by Randy Barnett, professor of legal theory at Georgetown University. This is a review of Larry Lessig's book Future of Ideas, where Barnett praises his book, while spelling out his differences with him. He writes,

  Unfortunately, Lessig is a trimmer when it comes to IP law, not an abolitionist.



• Property Rights and Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin, Professor of Economics at University of Minnesota, and David K. Levine, Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis. They write,

  All of this brings us to what intellectual property law is really about - a reality that is simply obscured by analogies to other types of property. What intellectual property law is really about is about your right to control my copy of your idea. ...
  It is no coincidence that the battle over intellectual property is so closely tied to debate over freedom and privacy. For you to control my use of my copy of your idea necessarily requires intrusive measures.



• Princeton University Press has made available online the introduction to Randy Barnett's book Restoring the Lost Constitution. Natural rights are the measure of the legitimacy of any constitution, and Barnett develops this founding concept beautifully. In his conclusion, Barnett writes^[8],

  There are other defects as well.... Congress is given the power to grant authors and inventors limited monopolies on their writings and inventions, which restricts the property rights of others.



• Regarding AdamG's question in the IRC meeting, here's an excellent work on how sovereignty is limited by rights^[9], On the Sovereignty of the People by Benjamin Constant (1815).
  


• Tom Palmer, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote two papers that question patent and copyright law.
  
  • Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified?: The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, vol. 13, no. 3 (Summer 1990).
    
  • Intellectual Property: A Non-Posnerian Law and Economics Approach, Hamline Law Review, vol. 12.


• Finally, here's a quote from the economist F. A. Hayek (Nobel Prize, 1974), the man I credit with winning the commanding heights^[10] in the war of ideas last century. He writes in 1947,

  The problem of the prevention of monopoly and the preservation of competition is raised much more acutely in certain other fields to which the concept of property has been extended only in recent times. I am thinking here of the extension of the concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for inventions, copyright, trade-marks, and the like. It seems to be beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. [emphasis added]
  - "Free" Enterprise and Competitive Order. In Individualism and Economic Order. University of Chicago Press. pp. 113-114.

...

Notes

1. ↑ Information Feudalism by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite


2. ↑ See free entry


3. ↑ See Objective Knowledge by Karl Popper


4. ↑ See also World 3


5. ↑ For those of you who didn't grow up in the Bay Area in the 60s, here's an article in Asian Week, Back in the Day by Neela Banerjee


6. ↑ Source: Popper's Theory of Objective Knowledge by Rafe Champion, quoting Popper's essay 'Indeterminism is not enough' in Encounter, April 1973.


7. ↑ Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind by Karl Popper. In Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, edited by Gerard Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley, III (1987) p. 152.


8. ↑ Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty by Randy Barnett (2003) p. 355.


9. ↑ See also Le Droit Naturel: Ses amis et ses ennemis by Patrick Simon (sorry, no English translation yet).


10. ↑ See the PBS movie Commanding Heights

Bob Barr Libertarian

Former Congressman Bob Barr has left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party, as reported here and there.

This seems like big news.

This follows much disillusion with the Republican Party through much of the ranks of liberals (classical liberals, libertarians, liberaltarians, market liberals, whatever). There's been increasing talk of allying with elements of the Democratic Party, from both sides.

Also, there was a bit of a coup in the Libertarian Party this year. This was healthy because in the years since 1994 the LP has been clinically insane, increasingly so, due to the influence of anarchists. The real issue is not one of principles vs. pragmatism. It is one of liberty vs. anarchy.

Ed Crane, LP Candidate for US President in 1980 and founder of the Cato Institute in 1977, left the LP back in the early 80s. Cato's strategy of course has been brilliant. Indeed all parties should have an independent think tank, in case they become corrupt or gaga. That's the strategy of the Alternative Libérale in France, which has a parallel association Liberté Chérie.

Is Barr a free pirate? Well, he's strong on liberty, which is a start, but off the mark on intellectual monopoly. So, not yet.

I only hope Bob Barr's association with the Libertarian Party helps move the LP towards liberty.

And I hope the LP sets Barr straight on prohibition, the material root of terrorism.



Bonus: Here's a video of Bob Barr at the 2006 LP National Convention in Portland, Oregon, this summer.



Hat tip for video: Eric Sundwall's diary on Daily Kos


Update: Here's the text of a Dec 15 interview of Bob Barr by David Weigel of Reason Magazine.

Update 2: Here's the audio of a Dec 19 interview of Bob Barr by Charles Goyette of KFNX, Phoenix.