Free Republic

Any serious discussion of “hate speech” laws should start with a consideration of George Orwell’s prophetic look into the future—specifically the book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Recall that in Orwell’s book, Big Brother sought to control not only all thoughts but also to language used to form thoughts. To that end, he created the language of “Newspeak,” described as “the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year.” In a separate essay, Orwell explained that Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. In the book, this suits the totalitarian regime...

"Most people are law-abiding citizens and may go ahead and sell those or turn those over, but you're going to have a fraction of people that are going to take a stand, and I can just predict a Waco-style standoff in some rural area and it's not going to end well," Gloversville, New York Mayor Dayton King (R) said about New York state's new gun control laws that Gov. Cuomo recently signed into law.

Like a scene from “The Wizard of Oz,” the economic stagnation hobbling America in the wake of the Great Recession has pulled back the curtain of market bubbles — housing being the most recent — to reveal an American economy that is a pyramid scheme devoid of the labor participation rate and overheated consumer spending that temporarily fueled economic growth while hiding the unimaginable cost of government. Now that the curtain is withdrawn, Americans have realized that their previous assessment of what they could afford and what the government could afford were delusional. America is awakening to the reality that...

Among his 23 gun control executive orders, President Obama authorized the spending of $150 million to hire “up to 1,000” armed resource officers and school counselors. Just one problem: there are 98,817 government schools in America, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency. Therefore only 1 percent of schools would potentially benefit from Obama’s new government solution. Apparently the other 99 percent (hey, where have we heard that term before?) would be left to the whims of deranged individuals who think it’s acceptable to slaughter children. Hiring 1,000 new government employees to potentially cover, on average,...

Americans place more blame for mass shootings on parents and Hollywood than they do on guns, a surprising new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll reveals. Asked how much responsibility several choices might bear for the shootings that have taken place in Tucson AZ, Aurora CO and Newtown CT, guns came in fifth. The top choice was “parents not paying enough attention to what is going on in their children’s lives”—83 percent said that was “a great deal” or a “good amount” responsible. Only 4 percent said “none at all.” …

President Obama's gun-control package was always going to be a tough sell in the Republican-led House -- but the plan is already running into resistance, or at least hesitation, from moderate Democrats in the Senate. The lukewarm response in the Senate to Obama's highly anticipated anti-gun violence plan portends an uphill climb for the legislation. And it underscores how, as the president's backers prepare to launch a veritable campaign to promote the plan, they will be pressuring members of their own party as much as reluctant Republicans. No Democrat in the Senate came out against Obama's gun plan. But several...

Join the National Day of Service On Saturday, January 19, President Obama and the First Lady, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will take part in an event that's become a tradition -- a National Day of Service on the weekend of Martin Luther King Day to celebrate Dr. King's legacy. No matter where you are in America, you have an opportunity to join this effort and serve your community. The Presidential Inaugural Committee has helped to organize events all over the country. Visit their site to find a service opportunity near you. This National Day of Service is about...

This is a "revised and extended" re-post of an article I wrote in 2011 to mark an anniversary of General Lee's death. It celebrates the two hundred and sixth anniversary of his birth on January 19, 1807, a happier occasion. Today, January 18th, is also Lee - Jackson Day in Virginia, as proclaimed by Governor Robert F. McDonnell. We have changed as a nation, often not for the better.We, as a nation, seem to have done with heroes of his type. Yet he inspired a fledgling nation, the Confederate States of America -- young, old, rich and poor alike. Those...

There just weren’t enough letters from adorable kids out there to convince him to do it. Proposed in 1999, the same year as the Columbine Massacre, SB-0759 would have prosecuted teenage school shooters as adults. The bill passed almost unanimously, with 52 Yeas, and only one Nay. And a bunch of Presents, one of them from the Illinois State Senator currently lobbying to wreck the Bill of Rights because he’s just that concerned about school shootings. Synopsis of Bill as introduced: Amends the Juvenile Court Act of 1987. Provides for adult criminal prosecution of a minor at least 15 years...

Emboldened by America’s projection of weakness abroad, Islamists apparently linked to al-Qaeda reportedly continue to hold about 40 foreign hostages including seven Americans seized Wednesday at a natural gas field in Algeria.At press time, conflicting media reports had been emerging from the region. Some claimed that the hostages have been freed; others, that several hostages have been killed. The mass kidnapping at a BP (formerly British Petroleum) gas site near the Libyan border, which may very well have been accomplished with U.S.-supplied weapons left over from the ouster of the late Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, seems to be a...

A professor from a public university on Wednesday claimed mass shootings, such as those in Newtown Conn., and Aurora Colo., are often the effects of jilted “white privilege.” Robert Jensen, who is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, also suggested race-based alienation is a motivating factor behind some parts of the conservative Tea Party movement. “Why are the men who commit mass murder disproportionately white?” Jensen asked rhetorically. “My guess is that it has something to do with the sense of entitlement that most white people feel.”

During the third debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney talked about Mali and the danger al-Qaeda represented there. The Obamamedia laughed and derided Romney, carrying Barack Obama’s water and continued advancing the fraud that Obama had decimated al-Qaeda, even though al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists had taken over an American consulate and killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya just weeks prior. Surprise!!!! Al-Qaeda in Mali is a serious enough threat that the French, THE FRENCH!, have invaded Mali to fight them there. It looks like Romney was indeed correctly focused on foreign threats, al-Qaeda is not decimated but in fact...

A congressional report found that foreign companies have been large beneficiaries of stimulus funds and received billions of dollars funds meant to promote green energy development and create jobs in the United States. The House Energy and Commerce Committee staff examined Treasury Department data and found that nearly one-quarter of the $16 billion in Section 1603 green energy grants went to a handful of large European and Asian renewable energy companies. “Billions of dollars have filled the coffers of overseas firms while the evidence of the promised permanent jobs and economic growth here in the United States is scarce,” reads...

We have not even had his second inauguration yet and President Obama has made two things perfectly clear. First, he will stoop to whatever low is necessary, even using the grisly murder of sweet, innocent children to manipulatively push “forward” his Stalin like agenda to strip you of the gun rights guaranteed to you by the Second Amendment...

Like many, I was confused not by General Colin Powell’s endorsements of Barack Obama, but rather his recent remarks alleging Republican extremism and racism. His barrage was internally inconsistent and ultimately made little sense at all. Such unfounded charges are out of character with his distinguished record and career. In 2008 and 2012 Republicans nominated candidates from the more moderate wing of the party. Mitt Romney had been a centrist Massachusetts governor, and fellow Republican senator John McCain, for example, whom Powell also did not endorse, in the 2000 primaries had run to the left of Powell’s own employer, George...

After more than 30 years of entertaining the Upstate, Freedom Weekend Aloft has undergone a major makeover. Community leaders and event sponsors got the first preview of Aloft 2013 during a kick-off gala Thursday night at the Children's Museum of the Upstate. The festival, presented by Greenville Hospital System over Memorial Weekend, is a 501c3 non-profit. This year, Aloft's charitable partner is the Center for Developmental Services which helps the parents of developmentally delayed children access all the tools and resources they need to face their challenges. The festival formerly known as Freedom Weekend Aloft has been ranked as one...

Islamofascism: The terrorist attack on a vast Algerian gas plant Wednesday shows a resurgent al-Qaida that puts the lie to the Obama administration's claim that the war on terror is all but over. It may in fact be just beginning. Everything about the al-Qaida "Blood Brigade" attack on the Al Amenas natural gas plant 800 miles east of Algiers — where hundreds of workers, including Americans, were taken hostage in a bloody standoff — suggests an organization growing in strength with a bigger game than just retaliating for the French invasion of Mali. You'd never know that from our silent...

“The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels,” Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. “We will kill them, they said.” --- -------- This isn’t really a hostage situation. The goal is to murder non-Muslims while embarrassing the United States, France and the Algerian government.

Freedom Is Not Free By Dr. Peter Jones As the Sixties cultural revolution reaches maturity, we need to remember that its fundamental rationale was the rejection of external authority and government control, for “sacred” individual liberty and independence, especially in sexual behavior. To our surprise, the cost of this freedom has fallen on everyone. In a recent article posted on The Aquila Report, Dr. Paul Kengor recalled the brilliant career of the recently deceased legal authority, Robert Bork. Bork’s book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (2003),documented the decline of American culture, liberated from sexual restraints.We remember that...

Last month's Miss Universe pageant introduced the world to some truly stunning women, a prime example of which being Miss Croatia 2012 Elizabeta Burg: one of the youngest contestants at just 19, Elizabeta's what you might call a smart cookie, currently working on a veterinary degree while already fluent in English AND German in-addition to her native Serbo-Croatian... Elizabeta hails from the small Croatian town of Vrbanja, -near the Serbian and Bosnian borders- where her parents own the farm on which she learned the meaning of hard work, milking cows and cleaning stables as a young girl. Her personal ambition, discipline, and...