In Kiwanis Club talk, former Gov. Roy Barnes preaches kindness and civility

Mar. 31—MARIETTA — Former Gov. Roy Barnes stood in front of the podium and spoke his mind during a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Marietta this week at the Hilton Marietta Conference Center.

"What's wrong with the country? What's wrong with us? All of us? Why do we hate each other? Beats anything I've ever seen in my life," Barnes said. "In politics these days, everybody hates each other, and it even goes over to our everyday life, we don't seem like we can be courteous to each other anymore.

"If you're a Republican or if you're a Democrat, you're evil one way or the other depending on your view. And that is a sad and bad commentary on our modern life."

Barnes was there to speak and accept an award for being a member of the Kiwanis Club of Marietta for 50 years.

Conversations and laughter rose above the clinking of silverware as more than 60 guests listened to the Marietta attorney speak.

Addressing the audience, Barnes said he doesn't know what the solution to division is, but believes there are some common principles that everyone should be able to agree on.

"One is that everybody should have a right to vote. And it should not be difficult to vote," Barnes said. "It should be easy to vote. I don't know who came up with the bright idea in the Georgia General Assembly saying that you can't give cold water to folks in line while they vote, but it's the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life. Have we lost all common sense? And that ought to be one of the common principles we can agree on. That it should be easy to vote, it should not be difficult."

Barnes discussed allegations of voter fraud and said there is much less of it than there used to be, but people have been deceived by their leaders.

"The amount of fraud is so minuscule today, most fraud occurs is really inadvertent. They came out here and recounted every vote in Cobb County, hand-canvassed every vote and it changed very little. And this idea that we can't trust the people to vote is absurd," he said. "We have a transfer of power based on the vote, and not what someone says, and that it is done peacefully.

"The most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my life was on January the 6th. I looked up and saw people who I never thought would be trying to violently take the Capitol of the United States over an election. That is not the American way. A common principle that we can agree on is that we have a peaceful transfer of power," he said.

Barnes also said it is vital, and central to the U.S. Constitution, that church and state remain separated.

"Now I was a history major in college. I got a history degree," Barnes said. "If you want to see bloodshed, look at the history of the world where religion has become so intertwined with government, that it becomes a closed mind, and a bloody way if you don't agree with it. Our forefathers saw it. Madison and Jefferson saw it.

"The reason that Madison insisted on the First Amendment, the separation of church and state in the First Amendment, was because at the time they were locking up Baptists, and he could hear the Baptists in jail trying to scream for freedom, and it made an impression on him, because the established church was the Church of England at the time, and if you were any other religion, you couldn't practice it. So, that ought to be one of our common principles," he said.

Another issue Barnes brought up was that government should not interfere in people's private lives.

"We ought to have a right to be left alone," Barnes said. "All this debate during the General Assembly on transgender kids. I have never met transgender folks, but that ought to be a medical decision. Let doctors make those decisions. We have much greater problems in the state to work on. Have we gone so crazy that we have to pick on kids? We should trust the medical professionals."

Barnes continued to discuss his disappointment with how people treat each other.

"We should all agree that we can be courteous to each other even if we disagree with each other," Barnes said. "I'm tired of the screaming, to be quite frank with you. I'm tired of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'll just lay it out to you as straight as I can. I don't understand things like that. I don't understand the lack of courtesy. And I don't understand that we can't disagree without being disagreeable."

Barnes then described how the budget needs to be balanced, and the tax system should treat everybody fairly.

"Giving companies a billion dollars in tax abatements to come here, I question that and questioned it at the time," Barnes said. "We ought to have a tax system that is fair and does not pick winners and losers."

Barnes said there are too many tax exemptions.

"When I first went to the General Assembly, there were three exemptions to sales tax," Barnes said. "Goods sold in whole sale. Feed, seed and fertilizer, and the Holy Bible. Those were the three things exempt. The last time I looked at the exemptions, it was like 50 pages of exemptions from the sales tax.

"Everybody that has a lobbyist gets an exemption now. That's not right. I think they ought to take it back and say no exemptions. Every exemption that you want to put in, you've got to vote to increase the tax. The state has to run, we've got to educate children, got to build roads and bridges, got to provide transportation, water and waste water, and make them go on the record that when they grant an exemption, it increases somebody else's taxes. And that's not right and that's not fair."

Lastly, Barnes discussed how there is something terribly wrong with our education system. Kids' reading levels are lower, and there are numerous studies showing how the first few years are the most important for a child's development, yet nothing seems to have changed for early child care in this country, he said.

"I don't have all the solutions," Barnes said. "I never did, and never will, but that's where I see things right now," Barnes said.

Before giving Barnes an award for being a club member for half a century, former Congressman George "Buddy" Darden talked about his friend by saying Barnes has enough awards to fill up a truck.

"Barnes was awarded the 2003 Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library for being able to do the right thing regardless of the political consequences," Darden said. "And has many more awards to his name."

Raymond Goslow, a Cobb resident made famous by his appearance on "Jeopardy!" was happy he was able to listen to Barnes speak.

"It was really great to hear from him," Goslow said. "I grew up in the same area as Barnes. I'm glad I got to hear his perspective on things."