i feel if i ever wake up one day and feel there is no hope then i have no reason to be involved or no reason really to live. i think it is important not to lose one's sense of hope at least some pessimism that the system can work. that it can change. but i have to say it's getting more and more difficult to do that. and as i say a lot of it, and this is not simply speaking to you as a libertarian as a member of the third america's oldest and largest third-party but simply as an american who has been involved as everybody here has in the political process. ..

i think senator bayh's words when he allowance last week that he was not running for re-election are very telling and not to be a wake-up call to the american people. >> they are more questions about the actual federalist papers hearkening back to what was written there. what strikes you is most specifically resonant about those that people need to pay attention to today? >> what strikes me most about the federalist papers is, they are either relevance to what we are seeing today. now certainly some of the

federal, the verbiage in the federalist papers were very clearly oriented toward the time in which they were written. i am referring to some of the experiences of the state constitutions, referring specifically to reasons why these provisions that they were advocating as the federalist should be adopted, oriented towards particular constituencies in new york for example, but removing that, maybe a third of the verbiage of the federalist papers, what we are left with is language that is remarkably relevant and illustrates to us a profound understanding of history and of human nature. that is so relevant today. i mean, when james madison was talking, as i quoted a few minutes ago, about if men were angels and government wouldn't be necessary and if we work of and by angels than all of these

checks and balances wouldn't be necessary, but we are humans. if we simply pay attention to what was crafted for us to and a quarter centuries ago, we would be so much better off. they understood it. they got it. they understood that you need to have checks and balances for the system to work. they did not propose that the president serves as the article to chief executive and whatever he decides to do is okay because he is the president. he is the commander-in-chief. yes, they gave certain enumerated powers to the president and there is certainly reasonably implied powers as the chief executive, the same for congress but to allow a president as mr. obama's predecessor did, to take the position that because the president is the commander-in-chief, and again pulling out that one phrase that so many people like and therefore can do whatever that

president decides he needs to do as commander-in-chief goes directly against the grain of what our framers envisioned for us and what we speak to, or at least say that we speak to as a nation. >> there are questions here about your comments about john yoo and related to what you just said and whether there ever is the time that the executive powers have the right to grow in which they did grow during the last bush administration. do you see any merit in any of john yoo's argument that they are sometimes need for extraordinary presidential powers during times of war? >> absolutely. i don't disagree with that is a notion but i do part ways with john when it comes to for example, they are being law that is on the books that expressly limits what a president can do in a certain arenas such as

surveilling the citizenry. the foreign intelligence surveillance act, where you have a law that was explicitly crafted to prevent a president from using the powers of our foreign intelligence agencies are surveilled american citizens without court order, then you have taken that issue off the table. if one makes the argument that simply because a president is the commander-in-chief and simply because that president defines a global war on terror as simply because that president then decides that, since anybody as a potential terrorist in any inch of our land can be a potential battlefield, the president has an absolute right to conduct electronic surveillance and find out what the enemy is doing so to speak as a battlefield commander could you cannot square that power with a law that expressly says a president can do that. is the president believes that he has to do that, then he has

several very viable options open to him. the vote of the congress has asked them to amend the law, challenge it in court but we should never go down and allow ourselves to be pulled down that slippery slope of the president saying he is above the law. >> there is a question that site and compares and wants you to compare your involvement with the clinton impeachment and a movement to impeach george w. bush, and because you expressed some strong views about that as well. how do you view both of those scenarios and it what point, given all that you have seen and all that you now no, at what what.should a president impeached? >> not only a very timely but i think the last time i was here was with bruce time. bruce fein and i were here i think it was a couple of years ago, and we were talking about that very issue. bruce proposed at the time, i think, some steps in that

direction in regard to impeachment. i was very disappointed in the last congress's, both when republicans were in charge and then after the 2006 election when the democratic party regained the majority, that neither of those congresses held any hearings that delved into or acquired into whether or not impeachable offenses had occurred under president bush. certainly, there were sufficient evidence out there to have at least launched an inquiry and some hearings to get to the bottom of these very serious issues, whether it is surveillance of u.s. citizens in violation of the law, whether it was the manner in which the former president potentially or possibly obstructed justice by improperly firing certain u.s. attorneys for either engaging in are not engaging in political prosecutions, or whether it was the issue of torture, and again

in direct violation of it seems of u.s. law. these matters certainly should have been gone into and i think shame on both the republican party when they controlled the congress after 2006 and shame on the democratic party for the subsequent two years during the bush administration for not inquiring into these matters, which they certainly could have done, which would have provided us a much clearer picture for whether or not-- impeachment was warranted. >> here is a question about how what the federalist handle the debate on health care. >> i think fairly quickly and fairly easily. no way is there any authority in the constitution implied or certainly explicit for the federal government to force individuals to purchase insurance, to have insurance. that is not the job of the federal government.

one can try and shoehorn it six ways to sunday and to the general welfare clause or the commerce clause, but i don't think that james madison or alexander hamilton or john jay would have had any of that. there was no authority for it whatsoever. >> you are listening to the commonwealth club of california radio program and our guest is bob barr, former libertarian candidate for president. there are some questions about you and your conversion from being a republican to being a libertarian. why that happened, what you left behind. >> i left behind in 2006, when i was invited to and gladly accepted an invitation to join the libertarian party is a member of its national committee what i left behind was a party that bore no relationship to do the party that i had been a member of for many years before that. a party that not only does not object to a president of its

party violating or appearing to violate the law and decimating the civil liberties of the citizenry, but applauds it, is a party to me that has lost its roots, does not care for the constitution and certainly does not practice what it preaches. i certainly have very serious concerns and objections to the manner in which george w. bush had expanded federal spending, that it was really the former president and his administration , the republican administration, the department of justice and the vice president particular trampling on civil liberties, denigrating the very notion and value of the great writ of habeas corpus for example, violating the law to spy on american citizens without warrants, engaging in what clearly is torture. it is not enhanced interrogation

technique when you waterboard someone. it is torture, sample and these things were done in violation of the law. to me that is not the party i can continue to be a proud member of. >> do you ever see a time when you can support a republican candidate? >> yes, certainly if a republican candidate came out there and said i stand for the constitution, i am going to start dismantling the regulatory state and the various laws that dictate personal behavior, which does not harm other individuals, if there were a republican candidate who said i want to put defense back in national defense and stop foreign adventurism and occupying foreign lands, those are the sorts of things that i can support in a candidate of any party. i don't hold out great hope that that is going to happen but if it did happen, certainly i could

support a candidate of whatever party. >> some questions about foreign-policy. about the war in iraq, the war in afghanistan, the war on terrorism or what it is being called today. how would the federalist and look at all of that and what hands or better yet what significant messages should we take from their writings regarding those issues? >> i think our federalist, while certainly these issues were in an era on the surface much different from what we are viewing now, i think there are some striking similarities and the fact that even in that era, in the late 18th century when these issues were being debated and our constitution and the bill of rights adopted, our nation faced tremendous threats. to be honest the threats we face back then were much more serious than the threats we face today from somebody who wants to blow

up their underwear or what not, as serious as that would be if that occurred. they faced at that time the military might of the greatest power on the face of the earth, the british empire. the bread still harbored some degree of ill will against us for beating them in our war of independence. they wished to do us great harm, try to do us great harm. in other words, these issues, that is limitations on the federal government's power to her survey all and search the citizenry to quarter troops, to take away their right to keep and bear arms, the power of the presidents, the limitations on the power of the presidency, these issues were being debated and incorporated into the constitution at a time when our nation faced very serious threats. yet our founding fathers recognized and understood that if the freedom they had just fought so hard to secure were not protected by

institutionalizing limitations on governing power, we would lose it. so i think they would look at us today and say you are not alone. we face challenges back than that will fark greater than those we face today. if you give up your liberties, if you expand government party beyond the bounds that we laid out and worked so well for so long, then you will to that which you say you are trying to protect against happening and that is, you will lose freedom. i think those limitations whether we see it in government power or look at it in the context of the first, the second, the fourth amendment or whatever, and if we read alexander hamilton for example in the federalist 70 i think it might've been, discussing the role of commander-in-chief, that is not an affirmative grant of power to a president to do whatever that president wants. it is ended and the strait of recognition that you have to

have one commander-in-chief. i think our framers and the authors of the federalist papers would be very distressed with what they see happening. we can fight against acts of terrorism. we can fight against those as we should, it if we link elements in afghanistan to terrorist actions here. certainly, we ought to use our forces and in a limited way to address that, but simply occupying a nation, whether we call it that or not, engaging in multiyear, multi-decade even efforts to change those societies is not the right way to do it, and it is not consistent with what our framers or the federalist intended. >> some more questions on domestic issues. instead of a financial bailout, what would be federalist have said should have been done?

>> that is a more difficult one, because what we see happening in terms of bailouts would be so alien to what the federalist had in mind for the federal government to be involved in virtually every aspect of the economic life of our country on a macrolevel and on a micro-level, which is what gave rise to both parties in supporting this travesty of bailouts and buying into corporations. it is so alien to our framers, i don't think they would even understand what was going on, but i think clearly they would have very serious reservations in terms of why we no longer protect the sanctity of contracts when the government comes in and says to a shareholder of general motors that your shares are going to be worth 10 cents on the dollar because we want to run the company differently. we are going to use taxpayer

money. when the government comes in and says we are going to use taxpayer money to favor acme financial institution as is supposed to ajax financial health, because we like them or i think our framers wou-- one oe government shouldn't be doing it and secondly having government do it is not going to solve anything and we are certainly seeing that. we are seeing now multi-trillion dollar deficits. what is it, a trillion and a half and the current year? just unimaginable amounts of money and that represents, even though that is all made up, borrowed money it still comes out of our pockets. at a reduced buying power, reduced economic activity in the communities and so forth. there a number of things that could've been done i think in terms of prosecuting some of the fraud that gave rise to this. appropriate regulation.

but simply expanding the role of government in running the economy and running pretty where businesses does nothing but distort the economy. >> a question about your opinion on the economy, which is where do we go from here? >> what i would like to see us do from here is that we start, stop running up the debt. unfortunately neither this administration are the prior administration takes that view. the national debt increased tremendously under george w. bush and it hasn't greased tremendously during the first year president obama has been in power. we need to start reducing back. we need to start doing something and we can't do it overnight. i know some in my party would like to see these changes come immediately. you can't do that. you can't all of a sudden say there is going to be no more federal reserve or we are going to do away with this department of that department but you at

least have to start the process and get serious about it. i'm afraid if we don't do that within the next couple of years, and i frankly don't see that happening, i think it is frankly going to become virtually impossible to reverse the trend of ever-increasing debt. you can sustain it for a while, but frankly i don't think of to rule-- feel comfortable with china being the largest creditor in the nation or brazil being second or third, whatever it is. i think it is going to come back in a number of ways to haunt us. not just economically but in terms of reducing and lending in the international arena where you were in debt to other nations and may have different ideas about how things operate in the world than we do. >> view or listen to the commonwealth club of california radio program and our guest today is bob barr former libertarian party candidate for president. some questions about the tea party. the tea parties and the tea party movements and how would the federalist feel about those

and how does bob barr feel about those? >> i haven't been to any of the events. i read about them and see them and know a lot of folks involved , that had been involved with them. is in fact these movements and i guess they are careful not to call themselves a party, the republican party would like to cooperate and that is probably the greatest danger to the tea party movements, it being co-opted by the republican party. that seems to be a real danger. if in fact though these movements are truly grassroots movement to educate themselves and their fellow citizens as to what is going on in washington, particularly at the federal level to educate people as to the real issues, to talk about the constitution in a meaningful way than i think it is good and i think our framers would agree with that.

if not disdain with formal political parties. i think they would look at these moves if in fact they are positive oriented, if they are not out there talking about arming themselves and so forth, which i don't think is very dangerous or go some of them seem to be going in that direction a bit but if it is positive, if it it is truly educational to form the citizenry, to activate the citizenry, to be involved about the substantive issues i think that is good, but it is awfully early to tell. i don't know if it will really continue in that direction. >> a related pushing, what is your opinion of sarah palin and her popularity? species seems to be fairly popular. [laughter] she is pretty popular. i have never met her. i was not impressed with her during the campaign two years ago.

and during the debate so called that she had with senator biden. i've not been impressed with her handling or articulation of issues since then either, but she does seem to strike a chord with a lot of groups out there, which maybe tells us the level of public understanding and discourse and shows us how much work we have to do. >> some more questions about some domestic issues. describe your stance on the same-sex marriage and another question related to perhaps do what we were talking about, how do you reconcile depending on social issues with the desire for less government. for example does grow choi same-sex marriage legality create less government in terms of their church and some people's lives? >> i am not sure i followed all of that, but to me, marriage first and foremost is not a federal issue. the federal government should have no business in it.

certainly, and i argued and testified i believe before the congress for five years ago when the so-called federal marriage amendment was being debated. i think it would be terribly inappropriate for the federal government to get involved in that. i have called for, even though i was the primary author of the defense of marriage act for its repeal in light of how it has been used as a club to deny citizens of the various states their right to make their own decision with regard to same-sex marriage. that ought to be up to the individuals in particular states. it ought not to be the purview of federal government even indirectly, as we did allow and is currently allowed under the defense of marriage act. >> a question about the cia. i was surprised to hear you used to be affiliated with the cia many consider the operations of secret intelligence agencies to be a major threat to liberty.

how did your experience with the cia influence your views and do you think is correct in keeping with the federalist papers in a free society. >> if in fact we have a central intelligence agency such as it was many years ago, when i had the opportunity to work. this was in the 1970s, whose primary focus is to gather information both covert and open information on what is going on in the world and to analyze that and present that and disseminate that to our policy leaders, not only do i think that is not a threat or a danger to society, i think it carries out an absolute responsibility or government has to know what is going on in the world and to equip our policymakers with the best and most current information. unfortunately, what has

happened, particularly in recent years, particularly under the prior administration is the agency which unfortunately has drifted ever since to some extent, the demise of the soviet union, which was a primary focus for two generations, it has drifted. it has not been given clear direction. it has not taken the initiative and providing clear direction for itself and it has allowed itself to become used in ways that i think are highly inappropriate and counterproductive. i would like to see, and i hope the current administration follows through on some of its initial policies to hold the agency more accountable but not to do away with its core mission. i think gathering intelligence information with regard to foreign nations, the goings-on in the world, is essential and i would like to see whoever occupies the white house paid closer attention and use that

intelligence for purposes for which it is intended. that is to allow them to make better, more important decisions rather than some of the ways it has been used by the prior administration. >> a question about the federalist and how they would view today's movement for green energy? how they would view the government getting very involved and encouraging and in some cases mandating people to practice certain energy-saving policies. >> i think there are federalist, they understood human nature a little bit deader than our leaders in washington and at the state levels do nowadays. i was reading on the flight out here today an article describing efforts by the government leaders in boulder, colorado to make their community greener and they take these steps to provide incentives and provides money for people to make their houses

greener by putting lightbulbs in that you can hardly see with and so forth. that was my editorializing. they believe otherwise. and, they have found over the last few years according to this article that it just doesn't work. people are resistant to being forced to do those sorts of things. well, then what government does, and i think the federalist would understand this, what government nowadays does is if they provide those incentives and the citizenry doesn't embrace them and do exactly what the government leaders want, then those government leaders don't say, maybe we did the wrong thing and maybe we ought to back off. they say maybe we didn't go far enough and then they they try additional incentives and additional mandates and so forth. it doesn't work. if in fact there is an economic price in the marketplace to be paid by using energy to freely

and irresponsibly, let the market take care of that. that is certainly what i believe and what we as libertarians believe and to a large extent the federalist would believe. they understand the market. they understood government should not and ultimately cannot other than through force of government power and the threat of jail force people to do things. they will do it if there is a proper incentive through their social structure into the market economy to do that. in georgia for example, in my own state, for three years before last year, we had a very serious drought. so, we had very serious water shortages. well, to me the solution would have been if in fact the supply of water goes down because the supply of rain has gone down, you increase the price. the prize should go out. government doesn't want to do

that. they think it might hurt people or what not, be unfair so what they did is they instituted mandatory water restrictions. to me it would have made a lot more sense to let the market take care of that. and if people want to pay more to use more water and if they can afford it fine, but sooner or later they are not going to be able to and it will balance out. >> thank you. a quick question about your movie career. you were in the movie, borax. >> for which by the way i received no world sees which really irritates me. >> what do you think the fact that you were and in it says about politicians or people in political life and the way they are viewed by the public? >> well i'm not sure. let me give you a little background on how i got roped into t