Libertarian Party of Pittsburgh » Election 2008

Bob Barr Coming to Pittsburgh Friday, October 10 at CMU!

admin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:39:33 +0000

Bob Barr’s campaign has announced that Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Bob Barr, will be speaking on the CMU campus for the CMU political lecture series on Friday evening. The event is open to the public, and there will be a meet and greet afterwords where you can have a chance to meet with Bob Barr.

Stay tuned for more details!

(Wondering how different Bob Barr is from the same, old Democrats and Republicans? Consider Bob’s comments on business as usual causing the economic crisis.)

Republicans anti-Democracy When it Comes to 3rd Party Choice

admin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:32:05 +0000

From the Campaign of Libertarian Candidate for President, Bob Barr:

August 25, 2008 6:32 pm EST

Atlanta, GA – Bob Barr’s presidential campaign has recently learned of an action by the McCain campaign and the Pennsylvania Republican Party to have Barr removed from the state’s ballot, this despite McCain’s promise in the 2000 election that he would, “never consider, ever consider, allowing a supporter of [his] to challenge [his opponent]’s right to be on the ballot in all 50 states.”

In 2000, McCain told reporters, ”Let’s not have the kind of Stalinist politics that the state of New York, the Republican Party, has been practicing.”

“This move by the McCain campaign completely contradicts everything John McCain stood for in 2000 when his competitors were trying to keep him off the ballot,” says Barr. “McCain has become a part of the same corrupted machine he spoke vehemently against only eight years ago.”

“This is America, where people have a right to run for office and a right to compete for the chance to lead the people of this nation,” Barr continues. “I look forward to the chance to compete fairly against Senator McCain for votes in Pennsylvania and every other state.”

In a recent email to supporters, Barr’s campaign manager, Russell Verney, stated that McCain’s attempt to block Barr from the ballot is one “you might expect of a dictator in North Korea, Libya, China, or Iran.” Verney, who also was the campaign manager for Ross Perot, called the plot “a blatantly hypocritical move.”

“This move is certainly one of the more brazen attempts to lock me out of the political process,” explains Barr. “But it is simply just one more example of how the political establishment desperately clings to their own power instead of empowering the people. The political establishment serves only themselves and not the people of this nation. It is time candidates for the most powerful position in the world compete based on ideas and not dirty politics.”

“I challenge Senator McCain to forcefully and publicly instruct his agents to drop the lawsuit,” says Barr.

Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA. Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom.

A Note to Disgruntled Republicans About Liberty

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:53:05 +0000

Every Republican I’ve spoken to is mystified that John McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination. For his entire career, he has been more statist on both domestic and foreign policy than even the typical Republican. He has been considered a “liberal,” and not in a good sense. He doesn’t share any of the values that are said to make up the Republican consensus on economics or culture or religion. His personal baggage is heavy and a mile long. He had no dedicated constituency within the party.Of course I’m not talking to the run-of-the-mill Republican. There are vast hordes of these people who have never read a book and vote only by the most sordid political instinct known to man. McCain is their candidate. It comes down to one thing only: the simple-minded, unthinking impression that he is a war hero and, more than anyone else, has what it takes to smash the evil foreign peoples who want to kill us. In short, he appeals to the militaristic, nationalistic impulses of the base Republican base.

The real question is why that one issue would trump every other concern alive among Republicans. How is it that imperialist nationalism has come to trump every other issue?

Many libertarians were formerly affiliated with the republican and democrat parties. Generally speaking, they found certain elements of one party or the other (and sometimes both) that they identified. But the also found a large and ever increasing element of both parties they didn’t like: the obsession to use government as the ultimate enforcer of solutions to the problems of humanity — at least as Congress and the President defined problems — and a willigness to sacrifice individual liberty as a mean to those ends.

Above is a passage from Llew Rockwell titled Triumph of the Red State Fascists. If you’re a believer in Ron Paul or just at a loss to explain why republicans can justify ending liberty while claiming to be for it, well — just give the piece a read. It explains a lot. It explains why many republicans have finally given up on the Republican Party — the establishment pays short shrift to liberty, and believes you have no place to go. It explains how the R’s now use the fear you have of the “other party’ to get you to sacrifice your character, morals and ethics at the alter of “not wasting your vote.”

Welcome to the Libertarian Party. Even if you are not ready to join, please consider the importance of the libertarian ideology and its importance is keeping both Republicans and Democrats grounded in some way to the idealogy that founded this country. An ideology that said the individual answers to god, and that government is his servant and limited only to protecting the individual’s right to say no thanks to others meddling, be they robbers, foreign invaders, or mobs at the voting booth seeking to confiscate both dollars and freedoms for their own cause regardless of your consent. Our ideology is so strong and true, many of us would gladly vote for a libertarian minded person even if he or she was an R or D. Such is the case with Ron Paul. Its truly about your freedom and liberty.

Libertarianism is the key to freedom and a wealthy economy. Please support it one way or the other.

It is Good to See Freedom is Still Valued

admin — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:40:54 +0000

Above is the Ron Paul donation clock as the hours pass for the Boston Tea Party fund raiser. at 12:00 p.m. today it was at $13.85 million, having already raised over $2 million. By 4:38 p.m. it was at $15.213 million.

Libertarians are about freedom and liberty… We’re for you’re right to say “no thanks” to bureaucrats and meddlers (and worse) who like to round up voters so they can hijack democracy and rife into to your wallet and rights. To libertarians, the government has one job: to protect your right as an individual to say “no thanks!” That means protecting your life, property, and rights of freedom and liberty — something it hardly does in its current form.

Libertarians being a party of such principles can’t help but be pleased to see Ron Paul, a Republican, doing well on a platform we support. It is a platform so rare today among Republicans and Democrats — and rarer than it was in the early 1970s when we were formed. But do we can that Ron Paul is an R? Nope. He’s an L at heart and in action, and for most of us, that’s what counts. Go message of freedom and liberty! Go Ron Paul!

Ron Paul: Libertarian or Republican? Does it Matter?

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:51:49 +0000

That’s Ron Paul on a recent episode of CBS’s “Meet the Press.” Libertarian ideas are libertarian Ideas, and Ron Paul generally speaks them well. That’s what makes the Libertarian Party different than other political parties. We are not about power and political convenience “just to get elected.” We are about a belief system of freedom, liberty, and the right to say no thanks. We believe the government’s sole role is to protect your freedom to live consensually among your fellow citizens without threat to body or property — that fundamental right to be yourself and think for yourself. Hence, you’ll find libertarians use the terms “small l libertarians” and “big L Libertarians”, with the former being those who believe in libertarian ideas of freedom, and the latter being Libertarian Party members.

Ron Paul agrees with us on freedom and very much on government’s role. He may be an R by party affiliation, but he is a libertarian at heart.

Tired of Republican and Democrat Hypocrisy?

admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:23:49 +0000

David is right! If you happen to live in California, give that number on the video a call. Otherwise, help strengthen your local libertarian party in Pittsburgh and in Pennsylvania — a region currently dominated by collusion between the big two Parties and their same old pork spending ideas — by contacting us as soon as possible!

More Ron Paul: On the Colbert Report

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:45:31 +0000

If Paul’s comments are new to you and sound a bit extreme, we encourage you to read up on well reasoned arguments behind such thinking. It is very much in line with the thinking of the Founding Fathers, who understood liberty and its relationship to your right to say “no thanks” to government meddling you don’t like.