In the post-New Deal era, the Democrats and Republicans were largely divided by economics. You were either for the New Deal or against it. You were either management or labor. You were for central planning or the market. There was a large consensus on foreign policy across the two parties. The Democratic Party was internally split over social issues, especially with regards to race.

Over the last few decades, the fault line between the parties has been more about social issues than economics. The upheavals of the 1960s, including the civil rights movement and Vietnam started to fracture the Democratic Party. George McGovern’s nomination and the Roe decision forced millions of Southern Democrats to abandon their party and join the GOP. Economic differences between the parties became less pronounced. The newly formed populist wing of the GOP pressed it to become more fiscally irresponsible. Younger, educated urbanites pushed the Democrats to become more pro-business. Yes, fissures in the foreign policy consensus started to appear between the parties, but after the Vietnam era the differences were more muted.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon magazine recently pointed out that there may be a new political realignment under way, with the dividing line being drawn over security versus liberty. You either believe that suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless domestic surveillance, and other “homeland security” measures are necessary to keep us secure from terrorism, or you believe that they are unjustified and dangerous threats to our freedom. I tend to take the latter view, agreeing with Ben Franklin that any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both.

Former GOP Congressman and Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr also sees the danger in Bush’s policies to sacrifice our freedoms in the name of protecting us. Over the last several years Barr has worked tirelessly with those on the current “left” and “right” who oppose the government’s unconstitutional policies that are threatening the fundamental nature of America. Over the weekend, Barr attended two blogger conferences in Austin – Netroots, which is a left-wing conference and RightOnline, which is a right-wing conference – to pitch his message.

Barr is at the leading edge of forging a new pro-liberty political consensus in America. Everyone who is concerned by the administration’s careless disregard for our history and what that means to our future should jump aboard.