by Bob Barr | Jun 20, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerBy this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles.—“Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley (1932)“’Isn’t it amazing?’ she said. ‘It’s what everyone says about this damn drug, that it makes people feel love.’”— Harriet de Wit, quoted in “How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist,” by Rachel Nuwer, BBC (June 14, 2023)Some things don’t change, as they say. So it is with attempts to alter human behavior. For millennia, people of various cultures and for various reasons — some good, some evil — have experimented with ways to alter human perception and behavior as a way to improve society. This was the premise of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World, published in 1932 and which described a society uniformly and purposefully addicted to and controlled by the drug “soma.” Now, almost a century later, there still are those trying to accomplish what Huxley wrote about as fiction.A recent study conducted by Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Harriet de Wit at the University of Chicago used not the fictitious soma but a real drug — MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) – in a study to determine its usefulness for increasing the “pleasantness of social touch.”MDMA has been around for quite some time, having been discovered early in the 20th Century by German chemists for possible pharmaceutical purposes. Decades later, the CIA conducted experiments with the drug, known commonly as “Molly” or “Ecstasy” rather than its lengthy scientific name. The experiments were part of the Agency’s notorious, top secret “MK-Ultra” program to discover the limits of humans to...
by Bob Barr | Jun 15, 2023 | Townhall Article |
TownhallShoplifting, including organized retail theft, has been surging in cities across America, and a new generation of woke CEOs and state legislators are implementing unusual methods of addressing the epidemic. Actually, they are coming up with ways not to deal with the problem. In 2022 alone, it is estimated that retail stores lost more than $94.5 billion to shoplifters. Retail industry analysts estimate that the average loss per shoplifting incident is $1,178.57; that was in 2021, which represented a 26.6% increase over 2020. Despite the prevalence of anti-theft technology and ubiquitous surveillance cameras supposed to stem the shoplifting tide, a mere 2% of shoplifters are caught and far fewer ever prosecuted. The CEO of one major retail company, Lululemon, has implemented a “zero tolerance” plan by which to deal with shoplifters. Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald’s company-wide “zero tolerance” policy, however, does not punish the shoplifters. Instead, it calls for firing any employee who tries to impede a shoplifter. Two employees (in woke speak, the company calls them “educators” rather than “employees”) recently were summarily fired from the Lululemon store where they worked in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, for no reason other than they confronted a couple of shoplifters and demanded they leave the store. Common sense actions as confronting shoplifters caught in the act of pilfering expensive clothing at a retail store in years past would be considered standard response to shoplifters caught in the act, and praised by management. Now, at least from the perspective of the highly educated and generously paid Calvin McDonald, the preferred way to protect the company and its shareholders, is to simply “step back, [and] let the theft occur.”Strange as Lululemon’s policy...
by Bob Barr | Jun 13, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerWhen he is not wandering aimlessly across a stage, President Biden is leveling the most vile of curses in his vocabulary at news stories with which he disagrees – “Malarkey!” This was his retort last week to a reporter’s query about allegations that he corruptly profited to the tune of $5 million while serving as Barack Obama’s Vice President.Meanwhile, former President Trump has been relentlessly and, as always, loudly, insulting Special Counsel Jack Smith for bringing an indictment against him for unlawfully possessing and disclosing highly classified documents after his tenure as Commander in Chief expired. For good measure, the former president also has been insulting anyone, including the man he appointed as his last Attorney General, who fails to similarly discount the 37-count indictment filed against him last week in the U.S. District Court in Miami.Actually, both cases have merit, both raise extremely serious questions about the competency of each man to serve in such high office, and both matters should be pursued seriously.The case against Trump was laid bare in the 44-page indictment returned against him last Thursday. The document is resplendent with details, including photographs, demonstrating the cavalier, and certainly un-presidential manner with which the former president considered classified national security information.Trump’s supporters argue, with perhaps a degree of validity, that charging a former president with nothing more than mis-handling classified papers is, in the broad scheme of things, not among the more serious issues facing America at home and abroad right now. Trump defenders declare also — and with a degree of cogency — that charging him but not Hillary Clinton with such offenses...
