From LP.org

Issues & Positions

Current Issues

The War in Iraq

Like most Americans, Libertarians are appalled by the actions of the terrorists on 9/11. However, it is important that we ask ourselves whether Osama bin Laden or the Iraqi people are our enemy.

There has been a great deal of controversy about so-called facts presented by the White House about the initial cause for military action in Iraq; it is time we look at some real facts. We are indeed nation building. We are playing policeman in a civil war. We have attacked and killed thousands of people in Iraq because of the actions of a terrorist from Saudi Arabia. We have chased non-existent weapons of mass destruction instead of the terrorists who killed nearly three thousand Americans on 9/11. We are creating more terrorists on a daily basis because of our intervention in Iraq. In short, we went after the wrong bad guys and are now stuck in the middle of someone else’s civil war.

While American public opinion has radically changed about our continued occupation in Iraq, the President wants to send a "surge" of troops to Iraq, while adding nearly 100,000 new members of our armed forces to the ranks. The Democrats don’t seem poised to do anything which will substantially change our presence in Iraq. It is time for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible in a manner consistent with the safety of our troops.

Civil Liberties

The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, significantly limit the power of the federal government to usurp the rights of private citizens. The Bill of Rights provides the well-known freedoms of speech, of the press, assembly and religious worship. It also provides protections against unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, compelled self-incrimination and double jeopardy. It guarantees the right to an impartial jury and denies the government the ability to compel self-incrimination.

Over the past few years, we have seen repeated government attempts to circumvent or even blatantly disregard the most basic of our guaranteed personal liberties. Rarely a day passes where there isn’t some major media mention of Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, secret prisons, the use of torture or domestic spying.

The government may snoop into the most personal of your mail or your e-mail and you won’t even know they were there. People are arrested and held without trial or legal representation. Sometimes they are even tortured. They can now use your cellular phone as a bugging device, even if you aren’t currently talking on it at the time.

It is essential that we repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and that we restrain the Executive Branch to the limitations set forth in our Constitution.

Fiscal Responsibility

When the Democrats previously controlled Congress, they spent a lot of our hard-earned money on entitlement programs and pork barrel spending. When the Republicans gained control of Congress, they spent even more of our hard-earned dollars in the same reckless manner. As the Democrats have just regained control again, we will have to wait to see what they do. However, their actions don’t look too promising at this moment.

Of course, Congress can’t take the entire blame for bad spending bills. The President is required to sign bills into law, and the current President never found it important enough to veto even one bloated Republican spending bill.

While we are amassing a tremendous federal deficit, many Americans are forced to make tough decisions about retirement, health insurance and even the education of our children. It is imperative that we immediately cease the wasteful federal spending so we can pare down the national debt and significantly increase the amount of our own money we get to keep. The federal debts aren’t going away and there are but two choices we can make. We can either tighten our belts a bit today or force our children and grandchildren to starve tomorrow. It’s time that we start expecting our representatives in Washington to act with the national checkbook as we do with our family checkbooks.