Free Republic

Can The Republican Party Yet Serve Conservative Purpose? The answer depends on whether we can resolve questions of purpose, priority & tactics, with far more clarity than we have in the last twenty-one years. Politics have always been about winning & the art of the possible; but to the true Conservative (which in the American context has always involved a major libertarian component), "winning" means preservation of a Constitutional heritage, never merely electing people with a particular label, nor those primarily identified with a single cause or the demands of any special interest. Winning is about preserving the multi-generational...

From a Conservative perspective, the election, November 6th, was a disaster. This American, as literally tens of millions of others, spent several days in near despondency, not only over the result, but over a successful methodology employed to distract, undermine, smear & intimidate, to provide victory to a man whose whole adult life has been an exercise in disrespect for our principles, customs, heritage & peoples. Yet the fog cleared, and with it any doubt about the road ahead.

From Virtual Endorsement To Active Support Our "virtual" endorsement was primarily premised upon two concepts: 1. The critical need to arrest the loss of Liberty, heritage & the remaining fruits of eight generations' labor. 2. The reality of Gov. Romney's demonstrated ability as a "problem solver"--the implied ability to look at all aspects of a situation. The suggestion was that we could move Romney to the right by working on his strengths; by polite, patient & persistent appeal for him to use that perceptual ability, employed to succeed in business & in saving the Winter Olympics, a decade ago,...

Social Reform: Compulsion, conspiracy & misguided idealism stimulate mass movements demanding change, yet are not ultimate cause for societal breakdown. Primary disaster mechanism, the 'unintended consequences,' results from conceptual confusion. Understanding confusion caused by conceptual myopia--the inability to see the forest for the trees--that is destroying the West. Essential difference between Social Reformers (Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Obama) & Political Reformers (Reagan, Thatcher & the Founding Fathers).

History is replete with examples: Politicians tend to follow popular trends, rather than lead. To the extent that segments of the public can be pushed in our direction, we increase constructive pressure on all candidates, who are not compulsion driven ideologues, to be more conservative. The Reagan era is a case in point; the reverse was true in the leftward shift of many formerly conservative Democrats in the early "New Deal." This does not imply lack of personal involvement. Our obvious interest has led to careful consideration of the merits, deficiencies & reasonable possibilities related to each candidate. While Governor...

To any American, dedicated to the promise of the Founders to secure the "Blessings of Liberty" to their posterity, a surrender of what those brave men achieved on the battlefield can never be acceptable. But that is not the only fundamental flaw in the Cousins "argument." There is an implied premise, in the claim that we must have World Government to prevent the Nations of the world from savaging one another, that there is no effective alternative, or alternatively that a World Government would be more likely to prevent the horrors of modern war than would, for example, the traditional...

In recent weeks, there has been some discussion over how to handle the soaring public debt of the United States; how that debt--its extent & the method by which it is managed--affects the credit worthiness of the United States & the likelihood of default on that debt; finally, the effect of such phenomena on the future economic well being of the people of the United States. There was also a hue & cry, when a popular financial rating agency issued a minor downgrade of the quality of that debt. In this essay, we will focus on the question of debt...

The Founding Fathers established a gold standard, . . They specifically forbad the States (Constitution, Article I, Sec. 10) from making anything but gold or silver an acceptable medium for the discharge of debt. Comparing the present fiat "dollar's" performance against gold, then, is both fair & particularly American. In a separate Addendum, "Capital Gains Tax," to our February, 2009 Feature on "The Function of Money," we calculated that at an $860 an ounce price, the fiat dollar had depreciated at a compound rate of 4.18% per year against gold over the then 75 years since Roosevelt had confiscated America's...

America, as synonymous with the people who created the Federal Union known as the United States of America, was born to a gold standard; was intended, always, to remain on a gold standard! No reading of Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution, coupled with key provisions of Article I, Section 8, can lend itself to any other interpretation. The first paragraph of Section 10 reads in relevant part: No State shall . . . make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.Note, there is no exception provided. Contrast that paragraph with the second...

There is no "Crisis" . . . Throughout medical history, the concept of medical insurance was unknown. Nor does the present availability of insurance, create an inalienable right to be provided with same... What is any form of insurance, but an expense incurred to narrow the parameters of future risk. Health insurance does not reduce the amount of money Americans spend on "health care"; in a macro sense, it actually increases such. The benefit to an individual is simply in narrowing parameters of what he or she might have to spend in some future contingency. . . To suggest taxing...

By any rational or civilized standard, John Maynard Keynes was a totally amoral scoundrel. Keynes At Harvard, a well documented study by Zygmund Dobbs, first published by Archibald Roosevelt's Veritas Foundation (Conservative Harvard Alumni) in 1962, thoroughly exposed Keynes as a Fabian Socialist sociopath, deliberately seeking to undermine free market Capitalism. Dobbs also showed Keynes to be a notorious homosexual pedophile, who predated NAMBLA, advising other wealthy & depraved British Leftists where, in the third world, they might expect the best price for "bed & boy." This vile bit of history is not, of course, our point. We intend to...

What stands out most clearly, amidst all the panic inducing talk and extravagant promises, lately spewing from the mouths of Federal office holders & Central Bankers, is of a desperate need to keep America dependent upon credit--easy credit;--that what is most feared, in the seats of economic power in contemporary America, is a period in which people restrain expenditures for new goods and services, pay down debt and actually try to provide for the cyclical, as well as disaster driven, downturns that have always been part of the economic history of human nations. The boom can last only as long...

It has been 40 years since a revised edition of the Veritas Foundation publication of Keynes At Harvard in the late 1950s, exposed the unholy roots and purpose of Keynesian economics. Now with the new President, Democratic Congressional leadership, and the Left leaning media establishment all screaming for more and more expensive extravagance and waste, in the name of economic stimulus, it is a great benefit that the classic expose' of Lord Keynes, the Fabian Socialist guru behind the fatuous economics of Governmental waste as a solution to economic problems, has been republished as an e-book. A bit of background...

The Obama response to any discussion of his involvement with a former Weatherman leader, engaged in radical revolutionary tactics in the 1960s, has been that he (Obama) was only eight years old at the time of the Ayers involvement in acts of overt sedition, and that he has since denounced those actions. This, of course, is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Obama and Ayers share a common Marxist ideology--a common vision of a new monolithic totalitarian Socialist America. Ayers may have changed his tactics, that does not mean that he has changed his goals. When Lenin and...

The saddest thing about the present political campaign is the demonstration of abysmal ignorance of the Constitution, the dynamics of social & economic interaction, and the realities of human nature, by most candidates for Federal Office. Let me illustrate by looking at Senator Obama's stated views: Take the subject of Federal involvement with civilian education. Consider what he has said and what he has not said. You have not heard Obama even try to explain what in the Constitution, he was sworn to uphold, authorizes any Federal Role in Education. Yet he discusses a Federal Role as though there was...

With renewed controversy over the nature & extent of any proper Governmental role in the regulation of economic decisions that influence or control commercial activity, some comments are in order. Unfortunately, a background in which America may be on the cusp of economic chaos, is not a time when sober & reflective analysis is the "order of the day." The recent panic in Washington has set a tone both here and abroad; and while the focus there, notwithstanding the imposition of new "regulations" in financial markets, has been primarily on creating more liquidity by "appropriating" new funds out of fiat...

Much has been made of Senator Obama's post-collegiate experience as a "Community Organizer" in Black (Negro) areas of the vast Chicago Southside. At the Republican Convention, the mere concept obtained some 'mileage' as a source for humor. The idea of an Ivy League College boy coming, full of the Leftwing theories & notions so popular in certain Colleges and Universities in post McKinley America, to tell those living in a large ethnic community how to organize that community is, admittedly, inherently funny. It is not humor in any way peculiar to the racial makeup of south Chicago; indeed, no different...

I have been debating for three weeks, whether to post my August Feature on the Obama Phenomenon at Free Republic. It raises issues that some Republicans would rather ignore, yet it is very relevant to the survival of America. The Obama acceptance, despite the absence of traditional American roots--indeed, he is really here by accident, as his father was neither a settler nor an immigrant, but merely passing through, and his mother could not wait to run off to Indonesia, after the Kenyan left her--speaks to a condition of the public conscience that is being applauded on the Left. But...

South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham recently referred to those of us who oppose the Kennedy/Bush Immigration Bill as "bigots." This is our response. June 15, 2007 Hon. Lindsey Graham United States Senate Dear Senator Graham: It has been reported that you have seen fit to refer to those of us who oppose extensive immigration by third world peoples into the United States, as "bigots." You did not offer to debate issues fundamental to the very concept of a nation; rather, you chose to asperse the motives of those Americans, who sought such a debate. This suggests that you may be...

One of our recurrent themes has been the general failure of political leaders in the West to display either a clear or adequate understanding of why the "Market Economy" out-performs all others, or a comprehension of the relevance of the principles involved to virtually every other facet of human inter-action. With the economic collapse of European Communism, even World Socialists began to accept the superiority of a Market driven economy. Yet neither they, nor most Capitalists, have shown any grasp of the actual dynamics. Rather, evident phenomena have been treated much as a correct recognition of the benefits of herbal...