Free Republic

While many in the nation, from Oakland to New York, rally in protest over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, I keep wondering: What about the good cops? As with our military personnel, we are often quick to hang the allegedly corrupt but slow to honor those who serve honestly to protect. According to the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there are more than 900,000 of them who are serving in the United States; about 12 percent are women. The FBI reported that there were 404 incidents of "justifiable homicide" by American police in 2011. That...

The catastrophe has driven a wedge between Haiti's religions as Christian groups make inroads among shaken Voodoo followers - some drawn by the steady flow of aid through evangelical missions and others frightened by a disaster they saw as a warning from God. "People see rice being distributed in front of churches and those homeless now needing papers are being offered baptism certificates that can act as identity documents," Voodoo priest Max Beauvoir told The Associated Press before speaking at Friday's service. "The horrible thing though is that by rejecting Voodoo these people are rejecting their ancestors and history. Voodoo...

Forty-six years.That’s how long William Wilberforce labored to see the end of slavery in the British Empire. His work began in earnest in 1787 when he first came into contact with abolitionists such as Thomas Clarkson, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. These activists found a kindred spirit in Wilberforce, whose conversion to the Christian faith had given birth to an abiding concern for social reform—so much so, in fact, that he wrote in his diary, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.”The dark and dehumanizing practice of slavery weighed heavy on him. He first...

Glenn Beck is trading ratings for runways. The media mogul is releasing his own upscale casual clothing line with patriotic undertones that lets you protest Washington tyranny — in style. The clothing line, called 1791, is Beck’s newest undertaking since leaving Fox News in June, and aims to “revisit that original blueprint of our Founding Fathers” by recalling 1791, the year the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. The idea had been brewing for several years — Beck wanted to symbolize how hard it has become for businesses to be efficient in America. “But only last January did...

On today’s The 700 Club, during a segment about the devastation, suffering and humanitarian effort that is needed in Haiti, Dr. Robertson also spoke about Haiti’s history. His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. If you...

Via Breitbart, the Robertson story’s almost out of gas but a rejoinder this clever deserves wider airing. Most were content to hammer Reverend Pat yesterday for blaming the victims, but this guy’s after bigger game. If you’re trying to divine divine will by tracing a cause-and-effect line between certain historical data points, how do you know which data points to select? Does Haiti get no credit in the heavenly ledger for overthrowing a slaveholder regime and thereby bringing about the conditions for the U.S. to purchase the Louisiana territory? If not, if that’s spoiled by their, ahem, “pact with the...

Gibbs: "It never ceases to amaze that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid, but, it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity."

Call Pat Robertson crazy or, worse yet, insensitive for his remarks following the earthquake in Haiti. To a reasonable person (by which I mean an NPR listener's self-concept), the notion Tuesday's 7.3 magnitude earthquake was punishment for a 200 year old pact with the Devil sounds crazy or, worse yet, insensitive. This perhaps particularly so to a reasonable person recalling Robertson's remarks along similar lines following 9/11. The trouble for critics of Robertson's insensitivity (I have seen no sympathy for the devil troubling him), is that Haitians say much the same thing themselves. The commonly accepted date for the start...

I am having an email argument/discussion with my son's social studies teacher. He distributed a study guide about how unfair it was that the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention did not include African Americans, Native Americans, women and poor people. I discussed with my son who is 12, that the only people who received an education at the time were white wealthy land owning men. I disagree with the use of the word unfair and let the teacher know my feelings politely. It was indicative of the era. Why would we send uneducated people to a meeting to start...

This week, the Bill of Rights becomes 213 years old. These 461 words were intended to be the backbone for defense of what the Founding Fathers called our "unalienable" rights. And so they were, with only few exceptions, for over 140 years. Starting with the blatant and unconstitutional socialism of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, Washington has steadily eroded our rights. So, today, many of these so called "unalienable" rights are but privileges allowed or refused at the whim of a capricious central government, and some have been all but completely usurped by Washington. Yet, these Amendments are still part...