by Bob Barr | Mar 23, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAs the oft-described Party of “Law and Order,” criminal justice reform tends to take Republicans out of their comfort zone. The continued, politically motivated prosecutions of January 6th participants, however, illustrates clearly why criminal justice issues must serve as a prerogative for conservatives, rather than a partisan blind spot. The federal government determines what is “legal” and what is “criminal” for purposes of federal policies and jurisdiction. Its agents then enforce that legality based on the administration’s interpretation of the law, and then deprive citizens of their life and liberty for crossing that line. Our Founders understood the huge responsibility of such power, and of the consequences when abused. This is precisely why much of our Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, concerns itself with the judicial process. Notwithstanding those many constitutional limitations, the unmistakable trend over the past half century has been to expand government power to criminalize all manner of behavior.Contrary to recent rhetoric from the Right, this is not a “guilty man’s” problem exclusively. Examples abound of law-abiding citizens being swept into federal investigations for nothing more than carrying large amounts of cash through an airport checkpoint, or making bank deposits the government considers to be “suspicious.” In fact, the federal criminal code has ballooned to the degree that legal scholar Harvey Silverglate posits that the average, “law-abiding” citizen commits three felonies a day. This makes criminal prosecution not so much a matter of if, but when the government decides its interests are advanced by enforcing one or more of the several thousand criminal laws on the books already. Defending oneself against the full weight of a federal prosecution is an enormous, often impossible...
by Bob Barr | Mar 21, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerFollowing World War II, the prevailing Allied powers agreed to convene an International Military Tribunal, commonly referred to as the “Nuremburg Trials.” The deliberations leading to this unprecedented undertaking, as well as the trial itself (which lasted nearly one year), were painstakingly comprehensive, and consequently have achieved lasting credibility.The ongoing public debate as to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s culpability as a “war criminal” because of his invasion of Ukraine has rekindled the debate about what constitutes a “war crime.” Sadly, the level of this current debate has been superficial and not worthy of its importance to the foundations of international law or of serious public policy (though likely making for good politics).The issue deserves far more serious consideration than an off-hand remark by President Joe Biden last week to a reporter that, “He [Putin] is a war criminal.” The next day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the president’s statement, stating at a news conference, that he “personally believes” the Russian president has committed war crimes in Ukraine.Has Putin committed “war crimes?” By ordering the invasion of Ukraine and then appearing to deliberately target civilian population centers, probably so. But if the United States is henceforth going to start labeling foreign leaders to be “war criminals” without amassing evidence and presenting a case beyond news videos, the credibility of such an important endeavor will diminish, and with it, the value of employing the term itself.In the decades since the Nuremburg Trials of 1945-1946, there have been a number of international judicial proceedings designed to identify, try and punish civilian and military leaders who engage in atrocities against other countries...
by Bob Barr | Mar 16, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe “Green” Kool-Aid Democrats continue to guzzle is truly making them incomprehensively detached from reality. It has sunk to the point at which one senior Democrat congressional leader, Sen. Ed Markey from Massachusetts, openly (and with a straight face) declared that energy independence achieved by producing more natural gas and oil, is “one of the biggest lies.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a doomsday scenario for radical environmentalists. The war has exposed just how weak “going green” has made Europe, forcing leaders to choose between economic disaster, and subsidizing Putin’s barbaric war. On our side of the Atlantic, Democrats should be paying attention to the lessons of linking one’s national security to the cooperation of despots, but they would rather keep chugging their green Kool-Aid beverage. Europe’s fate will be America’s if Democrats continue to follow their radical environmental agenda. Decades of environmental activism, ironically funded in Europe by Russian money, destroyed Europe’s energy independence. This short-sighted policy has made the continent largely unable to absorb even minor disruptions to supply from the Russian-controlled energy spigot. The situation is so dire in Germany, one official said a boycott targeting Russia would lead to “mass poverty” for the world’s fourth-largest economy. While America is not in quite so precarious a position as Europe, it is certainly nowhere close to where our country should – and could – be. Consider how long it took the Biden Administration to finally pull the plug on our country’s imports of Russian crude following that country’s invasion of Ukraine. If it was that hard to replace just eight percent of our total oil supply, where exactly does the Left...
by Bob Barr | Mar 14, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerWhen President John F. Kennedy made his bold declaration in 1961 that America would, before the end of that decade, send a man to the moon and return him safely to the Earth, there was little doubt our country would meet that lofty goal, and absolutely no doubt we would do it on our own.Now, six decades later, America’s ability to send astronauts into space, including to the International Space Station (ISS), clearly has been hobbled by a short-sighted (if not foolhardy) U.S. government decision at the turn of this century to rely on Russian-built rockets to launch heavy payloads into space.The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting U.S.-led sanctions targeting Russia is proving the folly of allowing our country to have become dependent on a potential — and now demonstrably real — adversary in a key national security area.With the head of Russia’s space program late last month threatening to leave an American astronaut aboard the ISS with no way home, the stupidity of our space program becoming dependent on Russian heavy launch vehicles and space capsules has come into sharp focus, regardless of whether Putin’s government would actually follow through on such a threat.For decades, Russia and the United States have cooperated in their civilian space programs, especially in manning the ISS. This relationship has permitted both nations to reap the benefits of the space station’s breakthroughs in medicine, telecommunications and many other arenas, while sharing the expense of such dangerous and costly activities.There is, however, a pronounced difference between cooperation and dependency, and it is in the matter of launching the heavy space capsules to the ISS...
by Bob Barr | Mar 9, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAnyone caring to see the folly of allowing the government to decide what is “fake news” or “disinformation,” need look no further than what Russia is doing right now with information emanating from the battlefronts in Ukraine.Republicans are angry with arbitrary bans by social media giants against conservative users of their platforms, while the GOP’s Democrat colleagues still remain upset with so-called “disinformation” on COVID-19. In response, both sides have taken aim at the tech industry by suggesting, if not demanding, greater government involvement; in the name of truth and fairness, of course. What is happening in Russia today illustrates vividly that such moves would be a grave mistake. Big Tech, and in particular social media companies, certainly are not blameless for the storm that hangs over them. Bowing to pressure from Woke Scolds and do-gooders in Congress and state legislatures, they established arbitrary rules, enforced by secret algorithms, to police subjective political content. Not unexpectedly, such “soft” censorship prompted backlash that has worked its way up to Congress. All of this could have been avoided if, as Elon Musk recently tweeted about his own policies on Starlink, social media platforms had maintained a “free speech absolutist” approach to content and let users drown out bad speech with more speech. Why conservatives, who historically have been averse to government regulatory intervention, would lift the privacy tent to allow the nose of the government camel to poke through, is mystifying, but it clearly is present.What the government would do with such control is written into the pages of history – and current events. As Russia’s military blunders in Ukraine pile up, Vladimir Putin is realizing...
