BADNARIK FOCUSES ON COMMUNISM, CONSTITUTION

"The United States is at war," said Micahel Badnarik, the 2004
Libertarian presidential candidate. Badnarik spoke Thursday in the
Student Union Jordan Ballroom. "I'm not talking about the war in
Iraq," he continued. "We are engaged in a... war of ideas. We are in
a war between individualism and collectivism."Badnarik, a
self-declared expert on the Constitution, lectured to a group of
around 100 supporters and students about the abuses of the
Constitution throughout American history up to and including the
present.One of the major themes of his lecture was a comparison of
the United States with its current form and institutions to the
Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels. According to Badnarik, the
United States is not a truly capitalist nation. "The United States is
.. supposed to be the antithesis of communism," Badnarik said. "The
first item in the Communist Manifesto is the abolition of private
property. Our Founding Fathers said that private property was as
sacred as the word of God and the communists think we're going to
abolish private property."Badnarik cited the recent Supreme Court
ruling on eminent domain and compared it with the first plank of the
Communist Manifesto. "The purpose of the Constitution and the
government it creates is to protect you private property," Badnarik
said.Badnarik said his taxes, when he lived in California, totaled 48
percent. "When do you get to say 'alright, that's too much'?" he
asked. "The founding fathers asked that same question. The Founding
Fathers decided that if the government is taking or controlling one
third of your productive output the system we have is no better than
the feudal system we tried to replace," Badnarik said.He also spoke
on topics such as the drug war. According to Badnarik, the U.S.
Government has no business restricting the use of drugs. Badnarik
referred to Prohibition during the early 1900s as "the first drug
war.""We passed... the 18th Amendment and alcohol was now not only
illegal but unconstitutional," Badnarik said. "The government ha! s
no aut hority to tell you what you can or cannot drink. The 18th
Amendment was technically unconstitutional."Badnarik said more people
died because of alcohol during prohibition but not because they drank
more. He said that it was because of the black market created by
making alcohol illegal. Badnarik said he blamed bootleggers and
gangsters such as Al Capone, who thrived on the underground market,
for violence that resulted from a profitable black market for liquor.
"We are doing the same thing with drugs," Badnarik said. He noted
that Coca-Cola contained twelve grams of cocaine at one time and that
opium was once available at drug stores."We didn't have the drug
problem until we made it illegal, and now that it's illegal it makes
a lot of money.... $10,000 to make the drugs and you can sell it for
$1,000,000, and that kind of profit margin is worth killing for,"
Badnarik said.He also related a story of how he was arrested trying
to get into a presidential debate during the last election to
illustrate limitations set by government on political freedom.The
lecture was followed by a question and answer period in which
attendees asked about specific points of the Libertarian platform.
Questions ranged from the status of Area 51 to immigration to education.