by Bob Barr | Dec 8, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall“The whole aim of practical politics,” H.L. Mencken famously quipped in the 1920’s, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” How very true.Although written a century ago, Mencken’s metaphor of an endless series of imaginary hobgoblins easily describes the string of new “variants” of the COVID virus, all which send petty tyrants from New York’s Bill de Blasio to Australia’s Scott Morrison, clamoring for new lockdowns and restrictions – for our safety, of course. As I wrote last week, news about the “omicron” variant had global leaders racing to be the first to reimplement “safety” measures designed to keep the variant out of their country, even though there was no evidence omicron was any worse than previous strains, or that similar efforts made any difference in the past.These tyrants, petty as they may appear to be, are a very real danger to freedom, though in a way much different from their predecessors in Soviet-era KGB or East Germany’s Stasi. These are not innately malicious government actors in the vein of 1984. They are just…stupid. COVIDiots, if you will.In America, we have the Constitution that thankfully limits (eventually, at least) the damage COVIDiots may cause at the local, state, and federal levels; other countries are not so lucky. Rather than learning to live with COVID by taking reasonable and measured steps to limit its impact, countries like Australia persist in pursuing scorched earth policies in which economic and social freedom are viewed as impediments to be surmounted so the government can fulfill...
by Bob Barr | Dec 6, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Most Americans believe that if they have been seriously harmed by actions of the federal government, they are at least entitled to bring their claim before a court of law and have it fairly and transparently decided. They would be wrong.Thanks to a seven decades-old doctrine, called the “state secrets privilege,” all that government lawyers need to do to prevent a case against the government from proceeding is to claim that national security information would be revealed, and the case is stopped dead in its tracks regardless of the merits.As outrageous as this doctrine is, federal courts for decades have permitted Uncle Sam to escape being held accountable for misdeeds, such as unlawfully surveilling individuals, by claiming “state secrets.” There is a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, however, that might at long last and to some degree limit the government’s power to assert this blanket defense.Holding the federal government accountable in a court of law never has been easy. An aggrieved person has to overcome numerous legal hurdles, not the least of which is sovereign immunity, a principle we inherited from our former English masters, which shields government officials from many, if not most, civil legal actions. Beyond piercing the sovereign immunity shield, a person asserting a claim against a government agent or agency for violation of his constitutional rights must surmount other difficult hurdles, including standing and timeliness, among others.Notwithstanding these legal roadblocks, however, there is opportunity for an individual asserting that his constitutional rights have been injured by actions of the federal government to bring legal action and to at least make the government...
by Bob Barr | Dec 1, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallA bureaucrat with an ego and an authoritarian streak is bad. A bureaucrat with these traits and a Chicken Little complex is downright dangerous, as we have seen most clearly since early last year when COVID-19 first reared its ugly head.Now, nearly two years in, these Chicken Littles are at it again, thanks to the emergence of a slightly new “strain” of the virus; the so-called “Omicron” variety. Leading the charge is the Chicken-Little-in-Chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci.In recent interviews, Fauci’s irrepressible ego and lust for control proves yet again why the man has no business being allowed anywhere near any levers of power.In an interview last weekend with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” for example, Fauci bragged about “representing science” and his job of “saving lives”; all the while denouncing individuals who, unlike himself, have actually been elected to represent and speak for American citizens. Fauci — whose career as science’s one true “expert” on COVID was unfortunately launched by former President Trump but elevated to sainthood by Trump’s successor — accused his critics, most pointedly Sen. Rand Paul, of intentionally “lying” to the American people because they have had the audacity to question the good doctor’s pronouncements (which have often turned out to be wrong).Always eager to grab the spotlight for himself, Fauci has lost no time in declaring what must be done for Planet Earth to survive the Omicron strain of the COVID virus.In the real world, however, what he and his COVID comrades across the globe are doing can barely be described as “science” – with a straight face, that is. Following preliminary reports of the new strain of...
