Bob Barr Quotations

It's not a gun control problem; it's a cultural control problem.

Looking down the road, space exploration and the benefits it yields - in medicine and information technology - should not be overlooked.

Chicago is known for good steaks, expensive stores and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately, the Windy City also enjoys a reputation for corrupt politics, violent crime, and some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the country.

Organizations worried about the potential for e-voting problems have long-advocated for audit procedures by which votes cast by e-voting machines could be verified through audit trails.

The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case.

It is not just software glitches and corrupted memory cards that should be on the minds of election officials. Hackers pose another very real problem whereby an election could be tilted towards a favored candidate.

In a single generation, the Internet has given to virtually every person on the face of the earth the ability to communicate with fellow human beings on virtually any topic, at any time, and in every nook and cranny on the globe. This magnificent invention has done this without succumbing to government control.

Unfortunately, most gun control advocates are not really interested in rational debate, and their political games simply send Alice chasing white rabbits down holes.

Courts have long recognized the federal government's robust power to inspect people and goods entering the country. After all, the very foundation of national sovereignty is a nation's ability to protect its borders.

For decades, parents were told by so-called parenting 'experts' that offspring would be best raised on the belief each is special and entitled to all life has to offer.

Taking privacy cues from the federal government is - to say the least - ironic, considering today's Orwellian level of surveillance. At virtually any given time outside of one's own home, an American citizen can reasonably assume his movements and actions are being monitored by something, by somebody, somewhere.

When conducted with proper preparation, and in a focused and professional manner, oversight of executive branch actions can reveal serious shortcomings by government officials and help prevent recurrence; the 'Waco hearings,' conducted over a two-week period in 1995, stand as an example of such an undertaking.

The average American returning from a trip abroad likely - and understandably - assumes the contents of his or her electronic device does not come close to meeting the threshold of 'criminal' activity, such as would give a government agent the right to seize and peruse their iPad just because they are returning from a vacation.

Widespread use of online voting will create the potential for abuse that will make the problems inherent in e-voting pale in comparison.

The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

Nobody is denying we should investigate and do what we can to prevent gun crime in our cities and towns. But, we should not scapegoat the American gun owner for complicated, cultural problems we are just beginning to understand.

People and organizations other than doctors increasingly are assuming power to decide which medications to prescribe or procedures to undertake. More and more, decisions about personal healthcare are no longer made by the treating physicians in consultation with their patients, and based on the doctors' expertise.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue that laws written in the 1970s are adequate for today's intelligence challenges.

Accepting federal funding undermines state sovereignty as states become beholden to federal requirements in order to keep the money flowing.

For far too long the American public and business sector have kept their silence as civil liberties have been whittled away by statutory and regulatory measures.

The Tea Party knows that continuing to delay charting a course to spending reform hurts everybody.

There are hundreds of fine journalists who regularly inform us of what is happening in the world around us; and innumerable commentators who provide intelligent and objective insight on public policy matters.

History has shown that Big Government expands quickest in the immediate aftermath of a crisis - real or manufactured.

It is high time for some congressional oversight backbone.

On taking office, Obama promised the 'most transparent' administration in history; yet his record as president has been anything but transparent.

People come up to me and tell me they support me because I never left my principles.

The backlash against Big Government is an encouraging sign of a growing resistance to the mission creep of federal power.

The world is undoubtedly a safer, freer place because Thatcher - like Reagan - refused to back down when it came to defending freedom.

MoveOn loves government. It remains enamored of government spending as fuel for its liberal agenda; and anything that threatens to close that spigot in any degree is perceived as a dire threat - worthy of Chicken-Little warnings that the sky is going to fall.

Presidential and vice-presidential debates are not about campaign staff or consultants, and it is high time we as a people took control and reminded them and their candidates of that important fact.

The legal principle placing the burden of proof on accusers rather than the accused can be traced back to Second and Third Century Roman jurist, Julius Paulus Prudentissimus. Yet, this ancient concept, which forms the legal and moral cornerstone of the American judicial system, is quickly being undermined in the name of 'national security.'

I'm pro-life but I believe that the federal government ought to stay out of it. That's a decision that the people of each state ought to make for themselves.

Iran is not a make-believe country. It is a real country populated by some 75 million people - real people; including, I daresay, a majority who are philosophically and by education inclined toward the modern, secular world, and particularly American values.

Now, national conventions are largely an excuse for companies and party leaders to throw parties for delegates to attend, to network and have a good time.

We've accomplished, as a team, more than many other members -- probably most other members of the Congress and Senate -- accomplish in an entire lifetime, and I appreciate that very much,

We've accomplished, as a team, more than many members.

There is no other place that we have where we can use live fire as we do in Vieques. That would put a serious hole in our ability to conduct training to protect our troops, ... CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports.

Going to war against Iran - whether one calls such a move 'surgical' or 'total' - would be an extremely serious undertaking; with worldwide economic, military, diplomatic and human ramifications in both the short- and the long-term.

Whether it's a sitting president when I was an impeachment manager, or a Republican president who has taken liberties with adherence to the law, to me the standard is the same.

I sense that conservatives have largely already tuned out to the coming elections, after six years of burgeoning federal spending and inaction on key issues, such as immigration. The Republican Party has become the party of the government status quo, and conservatives see no reason to reward it with their votes.

I think what the American people are going to see down the road is significant inflationary pressure as a result of all this government printed, you know, this new money that the government is putting in.

Let us not rush into a vast expansion of government power in a misguided attempt to protect freedom. In doing so, we will inevitably erode the very freedom we seek to protect.

I believe in the Constitution. I believe in separation of powers. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in limited government. And these are principles and policies that apparently neither the national Republican nor the national Democrat Party believes in. I believe great damage is being done to our Constitution, and I see no remedy at all, no likelihood of that changing, if we rely on the two parties to field our candidates for national office.

The 2011 riots in England, which left five dead and caused more than $300 million in property damage, were fueled by a generation of young Brits who grew up without ever hearing the word No.

Despite two decisions, in 2008 and 2010, by the U.S. Supreme Court unequivocally affirming that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms against infringement by the government, state legislatures continue to do just that - enact laws that significantly infringe this fundamental human right.

Far too many people have been swept into the post-9/11 system of fear that is the basis of all public policy these days.

There is no legitimate use whatsoever for marijuana. This is not medicine. This is bogus witchcraft. It has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief.

I supported the Iraq resolution, but that was not an approval of war in Iraq and certainly was not approval for an occupation of Iraq.

Firearms manufacturers usually find themselves playing defense.

The Libertarian Party is a very mainstream party. It's a mainstream philosophy. It's of returning power from Washington to parents, to schools, to businesses in their communities.

The main international problem facing America is our lack of - our loss of influence in the world and our lack of an ability to define what U.S. interests really are.

A critical component of White House Scandal Defense 101 is rallying the partisan base. This keeps approval ratings in territory where the wheels don't start falling off. The way to achieve this goal is you go negative and you don't let up. If you're always attacking your accusers, the debate becomes one of Democrat vs. Republican, rather than right vs. wrong. Anyone who questions the legality of the decision to wiretap thousands of Americans unlawfully is attacked, as either an enabler of terrorists or a bitter partisan trying to distract a president at war.

The goal in Afghanistan is to find the terrorists and take them out.

The Constitution never even mentions political parties, let alone the Republican and Democratic parties, yet all the election laws help to protect them from competition.

We have a president who's told the world, 'I am a liar, I am a perjurer.' I think that places this president in a very weak position and our nation at risk abroad. I await the Starr report because I'm more interested in what the evidence of obstruction is and not simply what the president wants us to believe.

This project was initiated solely by Intuit. We're on the sideline cheering them on.

Sir, you seem to be objecting to the level of my memory.

Mortgage interest rates aren't dropping because of the interest rate cuts, but because of the anticipated economic slowdown and the lack of inflation,

obstructed a law enforcement investigation and otherwise engaged in behavior in violation of the Rules of the House.

If in fact the U.N. through this effort ... moves in that direction, then I think it will make it more difficult perhaps for the U.N. to achieve the level of support that it would like to in Congress to further its legitimate goals,

I can tell you as a United States attorney, serving under two presidents, that I would prosecute these cases because I did prosecute such cases,

He has worked for each member to get elected, to be re-elected, and that is something members don't forget -- or forget at their own peril.

Going to war against Iran - whether one calls such a move 'surgical' or 'total' - would be an extremely serious undertaking; with worldwide economic, military, diplomatic and human ramifications in both the short- and the long-term.

He is so afraid of answering questions directly that even when they asked him about his oath of office, whether he took this particular oath of office, he couldn't simply say 'yes.' He had to explain it in the third person,

It concerns me greatly. It clearly raises serious concerns about First Amendment rights.

It gives the government far too much power and also could subject legitimate gun sales to a rather heavy tax.

I think this creates further a credibility gap for the government, and it is certainly fortuitous this came out before final action is taken by Congress,

That could be considered an obstruction of justice,

It does, of course, open another front for us to fight, We can fight a multi-front battle the same as the administration can.

The 2011 riots in England, which left five dead and caused more than $300 million in property damage, were fueled by a generation of young Brits who grew up without ever hearing the word 'No.'

We are in fact moving rapidly toward having a national ID, something which bothers me greatly. We've always been a nation in which the mechanism for providing identification, primarily through driver's licenses, has been a function of the state governments.

We are witnessing nothing less than symptoms of a cancer on the American presidency. If we fail to remove it, it will expand to destroy the principles that matter most to all of us.

Without those checks and balances, there will be abuses.

What prompted me was we finally have two governors (Napolitano and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ) finally doing what the federal government should have been doing all along. That is, that we truly have an emergency on our southern border. She actually did something.

Far too many people have been swept into the post-9/11 system of fear that is the basis of all public policy these days.

Think hard down the road to a future administration not occupied by the people we have now. We have to keep that precedent in mind: That gauntlet, if we throw it down, will be taken up by someone in the future that we really don't like and be used against us.

The work in which that committee engages is clearly the most sensitive of any committee of the Congress, and for a member to be embroiled in these sorts of problems even as he gets access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, I think, raises a very immediate concern that ought to be addressed,

(The ruling is) certainly not going to have any effect on the inquiry of impeachment.

The solution's going to have to come from our schools,

Privacy is the most fundamental of all freedoms. In fact, it is the foundation for all of our freedoms.

Despite two decisions, in 2008 and 2010, by the U.S. Supreme Court unequivocally affirming that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms against infringement by the government, state legislatures continue to do just that - enact laws that significantly infringe this fundamental human right.

that's not a decision that has been conveyed to us with any finality by the chairman ... I'm confident there will be additional very important witnesses.

They told me to impeach the man, ... This is not only a disgrace to our country but they fear for our national security -- leaving in office a man that is laboring under such a burden. This president is very distracted, they believe, and they want this mess to end.

There was no consistent message with regard to impeachment.

As Rome burned, Nero fiddled, ... ... The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society, the family unit.

As Rome burned, Nero fiddled, ... ... The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society, the family unit.

It is under assault as never before as a result of the mindset of 9/11, in which fear, rather than good public policy, has taken over. The Fourth Amendment says, I think quite clearly, that each of us is clothed in a sphere of privacy, and that the government cannot pierce that sphere of privacy unless it has a good reason for doing so.

That is true, I do object to the level of your memory, it's apparently pretty low,

I commend you for standing up to the nonsense ... that you have had to put up with today.

I believe he should resign rather than bring further discredit on the House of Representatives,

the current team, I don't think, will remain nor should it.