by Bob Barr | Jul 28, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe problem with having a reputation as a political bomb-thrower is that sometimes a good idea gets lost in the dust-up. This was the case last week when, in an interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) stated she would “kick out every single Chinese in this country that is loyal to the CCP.” Predictably, critics latched onto the word “Greene,” and immediately discounted the substance of what the freshman congresswoman proposed.In fact, if you brush aside her phraseology, there is something worthwhile and timely in what Greene is saying, and which confronts a serious national security problem most leaders in Washington, D.C. refuse to acknowledge. The dirty little secret is that our national security is being seriously undermined because far too many Chinese nationals are living and working freely here in America, even as their allegiance remains tied to the communist regime in Beijing, our primary adversary on the world stage (as I have noted previously).Federal agents rounding up large numbers of Chinese immigrants holding visas or who have resident alien status, in order to scrutinize their “loyalty” to the Chinese Communist Party, does not make for an effective (or likely constitutional) response to the threat posed by China. As a public policy, it is akin to using a sledgehammer when a scalpel is the far better tool. Moreover, were Republican leaders to adopt such a proposal, China’s leaders would sit back and smile serenely while the media, academia, and U.S. businesses with ties to the communist behemoth soundly bash the idea, thereby ensuring the proposal will fail to materialize as policy, while providing additional camouflage for their nefarious activities in our...
by Bob Barr | Jul 26, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerYou hear it all the time, from Democrats as well as Republicans: “The most important responsibility of our government is to keep us safe.” It is so axiomatic that no one ever really questions it, regardless of whether it is posited in a discussion about COVID restrictions, national security policy or law enforcement. But it is not an accurate statement.The primary responsibility of the federal government is not to keep us safe; it is to protect and guarantee our liberty and our individual rights as guaranteed by (not given by) our Constitution. This principle is clearly described in the Federalist Papers, and is every bit as relevant today as when those essays were drafted 233 years ago, regardless of the context in which it is applied.In the context of the Second Amendment, for example, debating the pros and cons of gun control, if we start with the premise that the “primary responsibility of the government is to keep us safe,” then we have ceded to the Left the basic “playing field” on which the extent to which the right to keep and bear arms is to be decided. Flowing directly from this premise is the next building block of the gun control movement — that only those gun “rights” that can be shown by their advocates to be “needed” for self-defense are to be permitted. If the government and its advocates then show that a particular firearm or firearm accessory is not “needed,” it properly can be outlawed without violating the “right to keep and bear arms” guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.Furthermore, if it is conceded that it is the responsibility...
by Bob Barr | Jul 21, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallTo some degree there has been a Cold War waged against conservatives since at least the Soviet infiltration of Hollywood in the 1940s. Under President Biden, however, this war has become red hot and very real. Leftists embedded across political, non-profit, academic, and government institutions are pulling out all the stops to destroy the conservative culture and political movement in America. Never before in our history has such a concerted action been undertaken. It did not spring forth on January 20th when Biden was inaugurated. The left has been imbedding itself into institutions private and public for decades preparing for the right moment to openly launch its war. The January 6th protests on Capitol Hill provided that spark.Earlier attempts by a political party in power to use government agencies to punish political opponents were limited in their impact, largely because they were not able to co-opt major elements of those agencies to join their unlawful plans. Thus, the Nixon Administration’s use of components of the IRS, the CIA, and the FBI to go after its critics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, failed to destroy its perceived enemy — the anti-war Left — because career elements within those agencies refused to join. In the end it was the perpetrators themselves who were destroyed, including the President.Now, a half century later, the situation has changed dramatically, as demonstrated in the fact that Biden’s Department of Justice and the FBI, with their vast arsenal of tools with which to investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate those deemed enemies, are leading the effort to destroy the conservative movement.Moreover, the technological tools now available, undreamed of by...
by Bob Barr | Jul 19, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerTo assist in its drive to demean American culture and history, the Biden administration has turned to the United Nations. Last week Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony “Tony” Blinken, actually invited the U. N. to come to America to study how racist and violative of human rights the United States is.This study will be conducted under the leadership of former socialist Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who now serves as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She will be aided in this effort by the U. N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a 117-member subsidiary of the United Nations with a history of anti-U.S. bias such that former President Trump in 2018 rescinded our country’s membership in the organization. Biden reversed that decision on Feb. 8, shortly after deciding to rejoin both the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization.Among the nations that will now sit in judgment on our country’s human rights record are such human rights luminaries as China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela.Biden always has held the U. N. in high esteem, with its massive bureaucracy headquartered on the banks of the East River in Manhattan that sits on real estate donated by the Rockefeller family seven decades ago. Despite many of the United Nations’ previous so-called “peace keeping” missions having themselves been plagued by serious human rights violations, Biden and Blinken obviously consider the international body an appropriate judge of U.S. culture and history.Now, five months after we formally rejoined the UNHRC, one of its top officials, known as “rapporteurs,” will be among those studying and passing judgment on the systemic racism and human rights...
