by Bob Barr | May 18, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWhy would an 18-year-old, with a full life ahead of him, feel so broken and jaded by the world that he feels his only option is to pick up a gun and kill people? This is a question few Democrats, including President Joe Biden, will ask.After all, issuing statements denouncing “weapons of war” (which has nothing to do with anything) and calling for yet more “gun control,” are far easier than seriously probing why so many young men are turning to internet-fueled hate mongers as a way to fill the emptiness in their lives. Still the Left stubbornly clings to the notion that gun-control and other federal legislative efforts will solve the deep-rooted cultural problems giving rise to the rash of mass shootings in recent years. Their willful blindness will force all of us to likely endure repeats of last Saturday’s tragic event at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. It is not as if there are no clues in plain sight to help us unravel the factors predicating many of these mass murders.One common theme, for example, at least as among recent mass shootings, including that in Buffalo, and in Charleston (2015), San Diego (2019), and Christchurch (2019), is that the killers were denizens of the dark corners of the online world. This begs the question, “why?” Why does the hateful violence in online commentary fill a void left empty by social institutions that in years past provided moral anchors to young people? Probing a bit deeper reveals more clues.In today’s risk-averse culture, children and their parents are warned, in some cases actually punished, for allowing their children to engage in...
by Bob Barr | May 16, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerOn two successive Saturdays in May, we were witness to the heights of heroic sportsmanship and the depths of human depravity. From the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 7 to the mass murder at the Tops Friendly Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, exactly one week later, we saw the best and the absolute worst that can happen in 21st century America.At 80 to 1 — the longest of long shots — a horse named Rich Strike ridden with masterful precision by unheralded Jockey Sonny Leon won the Race for the Roses in a way that every underdog dreams of.A mere seven days later, a heretofore unknown 18-year-old loner, Payton Gendron, allegedly walked into a nondescript supermarket intent on methodically murdering as many innocent victims as he could manage before the police stopped him. The alleged shooter was festooned in black tactical gear – a favorite of many white supremacists eager to display their false bravado to those around them – along with a video camera mounted on his head so those on the streaming service Twitch could watch his cowardly actions.It took jockey Sonny Leon just two minutes to enthrall the sporting world with what a determined rider astride an eager three-year old colt can do when they set their minds to it.It took the alleged Buffalo murderer four minutes longer – about six minutes – to shoot 13 innocent shoppers and one brave security guard. Ten of those people died as a result of merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time.Sonny Leon was born in Venezuela in 1990, making him 32 years...
by Bob Barr | May 11, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallPlato is the most well-known student of Greek philosopher Socrates, who lived and taught in the fourth century B.C. In his famous treatise The Republic, Plato presents the concept of a “noble lie” as a myth that “would have a good effect, making [the people] more inclined to care for the state and one another.” In other words, the “noble lie” was one that served the purpose of the “greater good.” It still was a lie, but considered acceptable because the intentions of its purveyor were noble. Socrates and Plato were philosophers, not scientists, but their notion of the “noble lie” continues today as a predicate for myriad public policy pronouncements.Our contemporary chieftain of the “noble lie” is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the oft self-proclaimed “scientist” who has led our country into the COVID-19 pandemic morass for more than two years based on repeated noble lies. Sadly, the “noble” Dr. Fauci presents more as the Emperor With No Clothes than a noble philosopher-scientist.When Fauci first laid his foundational noble lie before the public – that masks were ineffective against COVID and that citizens were fools for wearing them – there was nary a hint of nobility; just a lie to preserve the N95 mask supply for hospitals. It did, however, mark the start of a series of lies, omissions, and half-truths that would come to define how “science” was seen by the public.This will be Fauci’s lasting legacy: a man who undercut science in his quest for personal glory.The reason we can be so confident about this legacy is that the data already is showing clearly the negative effects of Fauci’s “noble lie” and its many...
by Bob Barr | May 9, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerYou have to admire the Biden administration’s chutzpah. Just as the left is having conniption fits over the possibility that entrepreneur Elon Musk might buy one of the left’s favored social media “disinformation sites” as a way to pull it kicking and screaming into the open public arena, government gatekeepers at the massive Department of Homeland Security announced the birth of an “official” disinformation office.The public first learned of this new office, the “Disinformation Governance Board” or “DGB,” on April 27 when DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas almost casually mentioned it while he was testifying before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee considering the department’s 2023 budget. The on-the-record mention about DGB that took place between Mayorkas and Democratic Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood, appeared to have been orchestrated beforehand, and was neatly slipped in during a conversation about “minority communities . . . being targeted [by] misinformation”; itself a rather odd topic to crop up during a hearing about Homeland Security’s budget.Unlike other “review boards” created by federal agencies, such as the Homeland Security Department’s February 3, 2022 announcement in the Federal Register that a “Cyber Safety Review Board” had been established, no such formal announcement accompanied the birth of this new “disinformation” bureaucracy. The omission was not likely the result of a bureaucratic oversight, but rather a tacit acknowledgment of the extremely controversial nature of the new “governance” board.It also is hardly to be considered a coincidence that DGB’s birth announcement came just two days after Musk’s announced plan to buy the giant social media platform Twitter. The unconventional manner by which the Biden administration unveiled the existence of the DGB...
by Bob Barr | May 4, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe Democrat Party in 2020 subjected the United States to a truly grave disservice by hiding from the American electorate candidate Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. The question now is, can the damage to the country be contained; a predicament we have not faced for more than a century, if ever.There were telltale signs of Biden’s slips during the last campaign, but as a candidate he still did well enough in the debates (where the bar has become increasingly low) and in his limited public appearances, such that it seemed he had enough left in the tank to get through at least one term. In hindsight, it is clear he was already running on fumes.It is no secret that the emotional and physical stress of the presidency will rapidly age whoever occupies the office, regardless of how young or old he or she may be. One only need look at the before and after pictures of George W. Bush or Barack Obama – both relatively young men when first elected – to see the changes eight years in the Oval Office will bring. Biden, who at 78 was the oldest ever to be inaugurated, was already at a distinct disadvantage even before having to deal with the simultaneous challenges of a pandemic, a cratering economy, serious national security challenges in Afghanistan, and now an actual war between an ally and an adversarial superpower. The burdens of the past 16 months have taken a visible toll and we are not yet near the incumbent’s first term midpoint. His noticeable absences from key moments on the world stage has America leading from behind, and if...
