Birthday Cheers for Steve Forbes

Bob Barr

7/26/2017 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

The vast army of pundits, influencers, and lobbyists inhabiting the corridors of Washington, D.C. and New York City is populated largely by two categories of people: the far larger group is those who seek power for their own glorification, and the much smaller assemblage is those who seek to effect genuine change around them. Steve Forbes is a shining light in the latter group.

To celebrate his 70^th birthday last week, Forbes was honored at a banquet during Mark Skousen’s annual FreedomFest gathering in Las Vegas.  Mr. Forbes delivered a stirring speech emphasizing the moral and practical impetus for returning the GOP’s intellectual roots to the free market, and, more specifically to that principle fueling free markets — capitalism. It was a classic Forbes moment; one that reminded those in attendance, like myself, of how key has been the role played by this titan of freedom in keeping America’s core values of personal liberty and entrepreneurship alive.  His leadership continues to be pivotal, considering how fierce are the attacks regularly launched against economic freedom by politicians, the media, and academia.

It is only a slight over-statement to suggest that Forbes’ work over the years in publishing and politics has virtually single-handedly kept the principle of capitalism alive and well in America. He is an unashamed champion of capitalism, at a time when many view it as outdated at best, and destructive at worst. Even among Republicans, Forbes is a rarity in this respect; he does not consider his wealth and success to be an embarrassment or something from which to hide. To Forbes, like any true capitalist, wealth and success deriving from hard work and risk-taking, are intrinsically American values, attainable by any individual with the drive and determination to make it happen; and, as he also points out, so long as government does not stand in the way.

The moral and economic defenses of capitalism are not ideas that come naturally to most people; especially baby boomers educated at universities whose economics departments worship at the feet of John Kenneth Galbraith and Paul Samuelson.

Fortunately, Steve Forbes has a phenomenal ability to take complex financial and economic concepts and make them understandable to the average person. Consider, for instance, the oppressive immensity of the American tax code. “The Declaration of Independence, the words that launched our nation—1,300 words,” Forbes once quipped. “The Bible, the word of God—773,000 words. The Tax Code, the words of politicians—7,000,000 words—and growing.” Suddenly, tax law, for most an unfathomable political concept, has relevance; and, with relevance, it becomes, to Forbes and those willing to listen to him, a flashpoint for action.

One such action was bringing the concept of a flat tax into the national discussion, where otherwise it would have existed merely as an esoteric parlor discussion among policy wonks. “You have a low [tax] rate, generous deductions for adults and for children, and you can literally do your tax return on a single sheet of paper,” Forbes remarked of the flat tax in 2011. A single piece of paper, rather than page after page of forms that you either do yourself, or more likely pay an accountant to complete? Americans could get behind that—and they have. In 2014, Reason magazine released a poll finding 62 percent of Americans supporting a flat tax. And, in the 2016 presidential primary, several Republican presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, vocally adopted the flat tax – the same platform Forbes ran on nearly two decades before – as their preferred alternative to the graduated income tax.

Forbes also has not been shy about tackling other complicated economic issues, like the gold standard and the Federal Reserve. “Just as scales measure weight, money should measure value and it does that best when it has a fixed value,” Forbes stated in a 2014 interview (and reiterated in his speech last week at FreedomFest). This has been a constant theme for the Princeton-educated Forbes, “[that] in an ideal world the head of the Federal Reserve would be no more important than the director of the Office of Weights and Measures inside the Department of Commerce.”  Forbes is right here, too.

So, thank you again, Steve, as you celebrate the start of your seventh decade, for keeping America heading in the direction of prosperity and freedom, using your business acumen and keen communication skills to articulate and defend the true American way of life. We could not have got this far without you. Sláinte!

The Nightmare of Single-Payer Healthcare

JULY 19, 2017

Bob Barr

7/19/2017 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

Despite the title of “Senate Majority Leader” prefixed to his name, Mitch McConnell has demonstrated little leadership in his approach to repealing Obamacare over the last few months. Rather than starting with a straight repeal – a bill that sailed through the Senate in 2015 – such action long-demanded by conservative voters finally came Tuesday, but only as a Hail Mary to save face after Republicans refused to support his two previous attempts — terrible and slightly-less-terrible. Of course, Democrats have had plenty of time to gleefully stir the pot, making McConnell’s efforts appear little more than throwing a bowl of pasta at the wall to see what sticks. Now, moderates who once supported repeal are no longer interested in playing along, and another opportunity for real reform is come and gone.

Opting against a repeal and replacement with a free market-based plan, McConnell and other Senate Republicans flirted with the notion that government-run healthcare is a viable option, so long as it be guided by a Republican hand. But, as they twice discovered, not only is this a doomed approach politically, the ongoing saga of the United Kingdom’s “Baby Charlie Gard” illuminates the frightening moral savagery of such a system; one in which the courts, not parents, spouses, physicians, or even the very individual affected, have the final say in the fate of the sick.

In the case of Baby Charlie, a British infant suffering from what appears to be an incurable disease, the Courts have ordered the baby be “humanely” killed, against the wishes of his parents who are desperate to explore all options to extend his life. In the healthcare system in a free society, the ability to seek treatment for a seriously ill infant would not even be a question for debate. However, in a government-run healthcare system like that in the UK, resources are rationed, with government bureaucrats serving as all-powerful gatekeepers, whose decisions are backed by black-robed judges whose allegiance is to the system and not to human beings.

The cold, utilitarian rationing of healthcare is not a component of a single-payer healthcare system liberals are keen to discuss. It is far easier to paint a rosy picture of healthcare utopias; where doctors joyfully work for minimum wage, resources are plentiful and cheap, and everybody has access to the same wonderful standard of medical treatment. This obviously is a fantasy, but one that constitutes the backbone of every liberal’s notion of universal healthcare. When reality rears its unwelcome head, as in the continuing collapse of Obamacare, the GOP gets blamed — a task made easier due to the failure of congressional Republicans to make any real progress in formulating and passing a meaningful alternative to Obamacare.

Compounding the problem, Senate Republicans have wasted precious time chasing a golden ratio for government-to-private control over healthcare that cannot possibly exist. Why? Not only has government repeatedly proven itself to be horrible managers of anything, much less something as complex as healthcare for a nation as large and diverse as ours, but the inescapable consequences of such a system are simply incompatible with a free and moral society. In making healthcare a “right,” citizens trade away the ability to be in charge of one’s own health. This is the sad but inevitable end game for any single-payer system, demonstrated by the ongoing tragedy in the UK.

The reality is such that not every person can see the nation’s best doctors, access the highest grade of medical devices, or explore every treatment option to save his or her life. Neither Democrats nor the GOP can find a way to make this happen in a world with limited resources. But, at least in a free market system, the opportunity to pursue these options is available without a court or a bureaucrat’s blessing, even if such options are financially prohibitive; individuals still have a right to pursue treatment until the very end.

A government-run, single-payer healthcare system in the United States may still sound far-fetched, but liberals already are anxiously preparing for it. They know the unholy fusion of private insurance and government mandate in Obamacare is not sustainable (and perhaps never was meant to be), and they know the Republican Establishment is too timid to actually repeal it. So, for them, it is simply a waiting game, during which they can sell the public on single-payer being the only viable option to “save healthcare.” In this game, Republican control of Congress and the White House will have meant absolutely nothing, after years of promising to “get it right.”

Obamacare is dead, long live single-payer!

JULY 12, 2017

Welcome to the Post-Factual World

Bob Barr

7/12/2017 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass,” 1872

Although appearing in a satirical novel nearly a century and a half ago, this statement by Humpty Dumpty in many respects describes the post-factual world in which we now live.

“Reality shows” are anything but; substantive courses of study like history and civics increasingly are overshadowed by such drivel as “transgender studies”; and “fake news” has become the common currency of those who make news just as for those who report on it. Examples of all this are disturbingly easy to catalog:

THE PATHETIC: “Hillary would have won, if…” – If there is a gold medal moment for the left’s inability to accept reality, it would be the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton —  from beginning to end an example of hubris overshadowing fact. The charade continues to this day, with Democrat pundits, analysts, and Clinton herself continuing to spout a litany of excuses for why she lost – the “Comey letter,” Russian hacking, sexism – rather than the obvious fact that hers was a poorly-run campaign headed by a candidate tone-deaf to reality.

THE PREDICTABLE: “[Insert Anything From White House.]” – Since Richard Nixon’s famous maxim that, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” to the Obama White House’s wildly ridiculous assertion the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks were prompted by a YouTube video, to the now almost daily spin coming from the Trump administration (even regarding “Covfefegate”), it has become reflexive to dismiss virtually any “fact” given to us by the Executive Branch. The atmosphere of misinformation puts a renewed emphasis on the old Ronald Reagan aphorism, “Trust, but verify” – even regarding something as benign as census numbers.

THE LAUGHABLE: “People will die.” – When it comes to the Democratic agenda, truth almost always takes second place to hyperbole, especially when it concerns saving former President Obama’s disastrous health care plan. To be sure, Republicans have failed miserably in providing an alternative that looks much different from what already exists. However, this has not stopped Democrats like the self-fictionalized Elizabeth Warren from “waving the bloody scrubs” about their proposals. “These [healthcare] cuts are blood money .  .  . people will die,” Warren declared shrilly last month on the Senate floor. Does Warren actually believe her words? Is there any factual basis for such a dire prediction? It hardly matters; all that does matter is that it fits the alarmist model of rhetoric that passes for “debate” in today’s post-factual political world.

THE ARROGANCE: “The world should know that Americans don’t align with Trump.”– This was the headline the unapologetically left-leaning Washington Post used to describe New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s speech in Germany last week at a socialist rally. In presenting his opinion-disguised-as-fact, Hizzoner declared that Trump’s Washington is “unrepresentative of the views of the American people.” The reality is that leftists like de Blasio have to believe this is true – and to keep repeating it — in order to maintain their egos inflated in the face of a recent string of electoral losses and President Trump’s rising popularity.

THE ELITISM: “I didn’t get any sun today.” – The post-factual world is not inhabited only by Democrats and left-leaning media. Its citizenry includes a wide range of elitists who think themselves apart from the real world in which we mere mortals must live. Chris Christie, New Jersey’s lamest of lame duck governors, is a paradigm of such delusion. Despite shutting down New Jersey beaches over the July 4th holiday due to a budget showdown, the “Guv” was photographed lounging on a state park beach with his family and friends, unbothered by any unwashed masses, thanks to the shutdown. The Governor tried to duck the horrible optics with his signature blustering; but photos forced his spokesman to supplement his boss’s bloviating with his own rather creative post-factual dismissal of the criticism leveled at his boss, declaring simply that all was well because, after all, Christie did not get any sun since he had “a baseball cap on.”

Clinton, the White House, de Blasio, Christie, and legion of their political and media cohorts from across the ideological spectrum, illustrate for us a world in which facts no longer are “stubborn things,” as the oft-quoted Proverb reminds us. Facts today are malleable “things” whose meanings are as fluid as the meanderings of a country stream; or for which “alternative facts” (to use a term coined by a Trump Administration official earlier this year) suffice when “real” facts happen not to fit the occasion.

Examples of this phenomenon may engender laughs, but it actually reflects a reality that sooner or later will have serious, if not tragic consequences for the rest of us.

President Trump Must Aggressively Oppose U.N. Gun Control Agenda

Congressman Bob Barr

07/04/2017

Is it time for the United States to walk away from the United Nations’ anti-firearm agenda?

Just last week in an appearance before a House subcommittee, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, defended President Trump’s proposed 40% reduction in our annual contribution to that international bureaucracy.  In her testimony, Haley described the reaction by the U.N. to the proposed cut, as “shocked.”  The testimony drew the usual “the-sky-is-falling” response from Democrats and liberal Republican House members who year after year vote to continue America’s $3.3 billion-plus commitment.

For anyone familiar with the bloated and costly U.N. bureaucracy headquartered in New York City, however, there are myriad justifications for a cut-back such as Trump has proposed:  the many scandals surrounding the U.N.’s “peace keeping” operations; the  duplication of functions among its numerous agencies and offices; documented mismanagement, fraud and outright corruption throughout the organization; excessively high salaries and benefits for its staff; and diplomatic immunity that insulates its employees from accountability.

To the laundry list of reasons that more than justifies a substantial cut in the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars donated each year to the U.N., should be added the millions spent over the past two decades by the U.N. to fund its gun-control agenda.  Despite there being nothing in the Charter of the United Nations that would remotely provide a basis for the organization to involve itself in control of firearms as owned and used by millions of American citizens and individuals in other countries, the General Assembly has been engaged in just such an effort since the mid-1990s.

The ability of the United Nations to define for itself a function – in this case, regulation of the international trafficking in “small arms and light weapons” (a term which encompasses virtually all handguns, shotguns, and rifles in use by individuals in the United States and elsewhere) — and then keep that mission alive for decades, is legendary.  The Obama Administration, which shared the U.N. General Assembly’s anti-firearms philosophy, in 2013 actually signed a treaty – the Arms Trade Treaty or “ATT” – committing the United States to take steps furthering the international regulation of firearms that would, over time, impact domestic firearms policies in contravention of the Second Amendment.

The United States Senate, currently in GOP hands, is on record firmly opposed to ratifying the ATT, notwithstanding former Secretary of State John Kerry’s signature affixed thereto.  However, the treaty once signed commits our country to take no actions inconsistent with the treaty’s terms or its underlying components; including numerous provisions that reflect drastic gun control measures.

Insofar as gun-control advocates embedded within bureaucracies such as the State Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”), could quietly take steps to reflect those anti-gun provisions in the ATT, there is a strong case to be made that the Trump Administration should officially “unsign” the ATT (in the same way that President George W. Bush unsigned the treaty committing the U.S. to the International Criminal Court, that his predecessor Bill Clinton had signed).  This could be accomplished quickly and easily and would signal clearly to the United Nations that the United States will have nothing to do with the ATT or its pronounced gun control provisions.

There is, however, much more that needs to be done to derail the U.N.’s multi-faceted and continuing effort to involve itself in gun control here and around the globe.  For example, the European Union (“EU”) currently is moving forward with measures to limit magazine capacity for semi-auto handguns and rifles with detachable magazines marketed to or in its member nations.  The EU also is pressing to require firearms sold to any EU country to have every component of every firearm marked and included in a database – posing major problems and costs for U.S.-manufactured firearms marketed in those countries.

It is not only EU countries that are riding the U.N.’s gun control bandwagon.  For example, numerous U.N. member states outside and in addition to those in Europe continue to press for manufacturers of ammunition to have every round marked, a process that is utterly impractical and would be hugely expensive.

This but touches the tip of the international gun-control “iceberg.” Several conferences to consider these and other U.N.-backed measures are scheduled to take place later this summer and into the Fall.  Trump’s much-repeated pro-Second Amendment stance needs to be reflected in unsigning the ATT, and in aggressively drawing attention to and fighting these international gun control measures through vetoes and limits on their funding.

John Bolton, as Under Secretary of State back in 2001, sent “shockwaves” through the U.N. General Assembly, when he put that body on notice that the United States would not tolerate any measure that would in any way infringe on American citizens’ Second Amendment-guaranteed rights.  We need to do so once again.

Congressman Bob Barr

http://merionwest.com/2017/07/04/president-trump-must-aggressively-oppose-u-n-gun-control-agenda/

JULY 5, 2017

Police Use of Deadly Force – A Rare Voice of Reason

Bob Barr

7/5/2017 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

In his more than 36-years as a military and police officer, including years devoted to training those who currently serve, David “Bo” Bolgiano says he never met a peace officer who got up in the morning thinking, “Gee, I hope I get to kill someone today.” In today’s “hot take” culture, where everyone from community activists to politicians are blessed with immediate, social-media transmitted insight into police use of deadly force, Boligiano’s recent deep-dive into the legal foundation for the use of deadly force by police, is a refreshingly rare moment of sober reasoning on an issue often statistically overblown; a debate typically book-ended between “all cops are racist killers,” and “every police action is justified.”

The lesson from Bologiano’s expert analysis of the case law and reasoning behind police use of force in the May edition of the Maryland Bar Journal, is that the aim of societal discussions and government action regarding the use of deadly force, should center on the circumstances of these incidents before they happen, rather than focus primarily (if not exclusively) on the legal proceedings that follow. The notion that only frequent and successful prosecutions of police will bring change, is not only woefully political, it searches for a simplistic resolution the courts made intentionally hard to achieve.

As Bologiano explains, decades of case law carve out a significant margin of error for police when it comes to deadly force, as necessary “to protect officers from the sometimes hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.” The courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, recognize the danger in placing the officer in an environment where he is supposed to pause to consider the legal nuances of his actions, in situations where split-second decisions could mean the matter of life and death; not just for the officer, but the public as well. Furthermore, given the high-pressure and complex nature of their work, the courts are reluctant to “second guess” police action, regardless of whether the force is later believed to be excessive or unlawful.

This is not to say that police have or should have complete immunity. The courts do make exceptions allowing for prosecution when actions of police demonstrate “only a purpose to cause harm.” However, as Bologiano notes, “neither the law nor reason requires a law enforcement officer to use the least forceful means available to stop a threat or make an arrest, only an objectively reasonablemeans.”

The broad safe harbor afforded to police is, as we know from recent incidents, not a politically expedient response to controversial actions by them; but it is an intentional design of the courts to keep police effective and the public safe. Attempts to dismantle this system via politically motivated decisions, like President Obama’s attempts to place local police departments under the purview of Washington, set to undo decades of carefully considered and reality-based case law.

To be sure, police make honest mistakes, and sometimes make terrible decisions. Yet, it is disingenuous to assume those actions are not taken seriously, or are part of a larger conspiracy, simply because officers are not eventually prosecuted in accordance with mob rule. Prosecutors should and can pursue charges when warranted, but blindly pursuing them out of political avarice (as appeared to be the case in Baltimore in 2015), or in the irrational hope of effecting institutional change, is a deeply mistaken and ultimately dangerous course of action.

Rather, citizens and governing bodies should look to improve police training — especially with regard to confronting non-violent citizens who are lawfully carrying firearms — which can help police make better decisions in their contact with citizens. As Dallas police officer Chelsea Whitaker notes, better training may have helped avoid the tragic outcome in the Philando Castile shooting.

Another worthy pursuit would be reducing the over-criminalization of our society, in which even selling “loose cigarettes” can end in a deadly police encounter. By reducing the reasons police would need to confront citizens, it naturally follows the potential for escalation would also be reduced.

The easiest and quickest way, however, to decrease the use of deadly force against citizens (rare as it is, contrary to media hype), is simply by treating police with respect, and obey their commands – even when they are wrong. Citizens should know their rights, including the right to not answer questions and have an attorney present when they do choose to speak; but ignoring an officer’s orders, engaging in back-talk or insults towards them, attempting to flee, or worst of all, physically resisting an arrest, is never an acceptable “protest.”

The use of deadly force by police is regrettable, and in some instances, truly tragic. But, reducing the occurrences of deadly force requires understanding and cooperation by police and citizens. And, a key aspect of this cooperation is recognizing the legal protection of their actions, good or bad, that in turn help keep society safe.