by Bob Barr | Jun 23, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Most Americans understand that in our system of justice, a person is “innocent until proven guilty” and that someone cannot be punished if they are not guilty. Bedrock due process, right? Not necessarily. For years, many judges have punished individuals who appear before them even though they have been determined to be innocent. These judges, all of whom have taken an oath to uphold our Constitution, are basically thumbing their nose at jurors who had determined the government failed to meet its burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unfortunately, this practice has not been halted either by the U.S. Supreme Court or federal law. Finally, however, a bipartisan group of United States senators are pushing legislation that would prohibit this shameful practice of punishing people for crimes for which they had not been convicted. The bill is S.601, the “Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021.” Observers might scratch their head and wonder why such a piece of legislation is even needed, considering the clarity with which our Bill of Rights guarantees such fundamental rights as due process, equal protection of the law, and freedom from excessive punishment, among others. But such a law is needed, and it is needed now. The practice of punishing individuals for crimes not proven results from a decades-long trend of giving judges and prosecutors ever more power over defendants coming before them. Mandatory minimum sentences may be perhaps the most visible reflection of this trend but is certainly not the only one. The problem had not escaped the attention of sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his two late...
by Bob Barr | Jun 16, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall In a free market system, sellers compete by offering products of either a higher quality, or at a lower price. However, when sellers collude to sell their products all at a fixed price, consumers pay a higher price because there is no longer a need for competition. In the private sector, this is called a cartel. In the public sector, we call it a G7 summit. Joe Biden fancies himself something of a straight shooter, so why is he not shooting straight with Americans when it comes to the G7’s latest scheme for a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent? Try as they might to spin it, the G7’s plan is a global tax cartel, and while this sort of socialism is par for the course for Europe, America should know better. America is a country whose entrepreneurs built the world’s greatest and strongest economy. We are home to recent success stories like Apple and Amazon, but also benefit from some three million businesses owned by immigrants that generated more than a trillion dollars for the U.S. economy. Why in the world, then, would we voluntarily agree to make doing business in America and with American companies worse, so that by comparison, it makes doing business in Europe better? It is not the American taxpayers’ job to subsidize European socialism, but that is exactly what Biden is volunteering them to do by pledging U.S. support for this tax cartel. If European countries want to band together and levy higher taxes on corporations, that is their business. America should be working in the opposite direction, however, by taking...
by Bob Barr | Jun 9, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall In a world of facts and reason, Rebekah Jones is an outlier. As National Review’s Charles Cooke elaborately detailed last month about the Florida Department of Health’s former COVID-19 data analyst, Jones is many things – fabulist, grifter, disgraced former professor, and subject of numerous criminal charges from felony robbery to cyber-stalking. But courageous “truth teller” she certainly is not. Then again, in today’s world that depends on one’s politics. The case against Jones’ credibility is as clear-cut as it gets among today’s flurry of media disinformation, but the Left has nevertheless embraced her as a Joan of Arc figure of the COVID-19 crisis; largely, if not exclusively, because her allegations that Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis manipulated COVID-19 health stats for political gain fits the narrative they yearn to believe. And, as the saying goes, that is their story and they are sticking to it – facts, or Jones’ deranged behavior, to the contrary. There is little more to add in discrediting Jones’ wild claims against DeSantis that Cooke has not already addressed over the last month, but Jones’ ability to hoodwink liberals simply because her story confirms their personal and political biases, is worth exploring further. It reflects a disturbing trend, particularly among the mainstream media and Democrat politicians, in which “truth-seeking” is more about confirming a narrative, than actually seeking the truth. Confirmation bias is the tendency to accept information more readily as true if it reflects currently held beliefs, as well as to more quickly reject information that challenges these. To some degree, confirmation bias is a part of human nature. However, when it comes...
by Bob Barr | Jun 2, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Why in the world was the U.S. funding virus research in China? This is the $10 trillion question about which more members of Congress other than Sen. Rand Paul should be grilling Dr. Anthony Fauci, who thus far has failed to give Americans the straight answers we deserve. The issue is far bigger than Fauci and what Republicans should be demanding is a clear answer to why America funds any research of any sort with our primary world adversary, especially research that is at best “dual use” research, and at worst a precursor for devastating biological warfare. One reason is that the Left has never appeared to understand the real world, in which there are friends and enemies; including enemies with smiling faces and offering candy, but whose aim is to kill you. In the case of China, smiling faces are empty promises of domestic liberalization, and its proffered candy is lucrative Chinese markets for U.S. companies. The truth behind the mask is all too easy to spot – if one is willing to look. Human rights abuses against the Uyghur people, Orwellian surveillance networks and “social credit” systems, a tyrannical crackdown in Hong Kong, and state-sponsored cyber-hacking of U.S. companies are but a few examples of China’s recent reprehensible conduct. Still, the Left continues to mollycoddle this global power as if it were nothing more than a puppy wetting the carpet. This behavior is embarrassing when it comes from the private sector, as when the NBA, an avowed “social justice” advocate, shushed its players from criticizing China for fear of jeopardizing the league’s $5 billion investment in that country, or when a spineless...
by Bob Barr | May 26, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall In a recent piece at The Bulwark, Sonny Bunch puts into words a sentiment sensed by many for years, namely, that what once made social media so great has now made it unbearable. According to Bunch, social media’s original design as platforms for “debate culture” has descended into a toxic landscape of information silos where arguments are “dismissed in favor of agreement.” Rather than a boundless world of information and opinions, social media now serves to blind users from reality. This sorry situation, however, is precisely what Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein predicted in his 2008 book, The Dumbest Generation, How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. How tragically right he was. Today, social media is used far less for reasoned debate than as the vehicle for outraged mobs to launch vicious fusillades against their perceived enemies. Some targets of this vehemence are large organizations and companies able to withstand such attacks. Often, however, victims of social media lynch mobs are individuals who knowingly or by chance have traversed the social media crosshairs of the Left and expressed views at odds with the prevailing social media orthodoxy. In spite of the potentially life-changing consequences of becoming the latest “Central Park Karen,” or merely someone wrongly accused of being a “Nazi,” such nuances are lost on these online mobs, as their aim is not to change minds or debunk misinformation, but to destroy their targets personally, emotionally, and financially – all while taking glee in the ruin they cause. This internet misbehavior is fueled by hashtags that facilitate coordination and aided by secret algorithms designed to keep users hooked by feeding...
by Bob Barr | May 19, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Support for President Trump has become something of a litmus test in today’s GOP. While this actually is not a bad measure of political backbone for a Party often in need of it, the removal of Liz Cheney as Conference chair and her replacement with up-and-comer Elise Stefanik, is a reminder that in order to project and protect conservative values, the Party needs more. Much more. Beyond Stefanik’s support for Trump is a troubling voting history in Congress. According to FreedomWorks’ 2020 congressional scorecard, Stefanik received a paltry 37 percent on scored votes. By comparison, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a 26 – just 11 points less than the GOP’s now third-ranking member in the House. Stefanik hardly seems the right choice to carry the GOP mantle at a time when conservative values are under attack from a progressive mob determined to wipe out all that we hold dear. There are other troubling signs for the GOP. Take Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Gaetz’s support for Trump and willingness to stand up to critics played a major role in the Florida Millennial blossoming into a rising GOP star, even though rumors of his questionable behavior were known for years. And, with a FreedomWorks’ congressional score of 65 (largely attributed to many missed votes on key bills), Gaetz’s unreliability as a crucial conservative vote fails to offset the liability he has become. Stefanik and Gaetz are but the latest examples of the personality-over-principles problem within the GOP. The prevalence of social media in today’s political campaigns appears to have forever altered how candidates communicate with voters. In some ways, this has given way to...
