Free Republic

It’s considered one of the world’s oldest Christian populations—now it’s poised to become the most recent driven to extinction. So says Canon Andrew White, a prominent churchman known as the “vicar of Baghdad,” about Iraqi Christians.

In this age of waxing laws and waning freedoms, a notable exception to the pattern of ever-tightening restrictions is gun prohibitions. New Hampshire no longer requires a license for the carrying of a concealed, loaded firearm; Florida is considering eliminating all “gun-free zones” (e.g., at schools); and Iowa may institute a “Stand your ground” provision and lower the age at which children could use handguns, to cite a few examples. [...]All this stokes another fear: that the U.S. will become a gun free-for-all zone of murder and mayhem. But does data justify this concern?

We are witnessing, I believe, a turning point in geopolitical history, one future historians may analyze as we have the Roman Empire’s fall. Vladimir Putin is making a move -- and it’s not just against Ukraine. It may not be merely a move against Eastern Europe. It’s not even, perhaps, just a move against US world dominance. There was a time when the USSR was the “evil empire,” a godless Golgotha. But that was then. Now, in 2013-14, Putin has seen fit to say, in his December State of the Nation speech, “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their...

The child would daydream in class, his elementary-school teachers said. He often just didn’t pay attention the way they would have liked. This was before the age of prevalent ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin, so no remedy was at hand, either. If one had been, though, who knows what he might have been? Perhaps not co-valedictorian of his school — which he was. I was that child. And were I attending school today and especially if my behavior had been worse, it’s likely I’d have received that fashionable diagnosis. And why not? It seems everyone now could have ADHD. This point...

In recent times, there has been a development quite odd and unprecedented in the annals of the sexual “revolution.” When America’s traditional sexual mores started to break down, it always took the form of slouching toward “tolerance.” For example, consider fornication. Two unmarried opposite-sex individuals cohabitating was once known as “living in sin” and was not something any couple could do in their community. But as pedophile Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent science and the phenomenon whereby, as Confucius said, no one likes “virtue as much as sex” eroded moral barriers, this started to change. And then one thing led to another,...

They used to hang horse thieves — now they elect them mayor. As many know, New York City’s new commandant, Bill de Blasio, has sworn that one of his first acts upon taking office will be to ban Central Park’s iconic horse-drawn carriages. He claims that forcing horses to work in downtown Manhattan is inhumane, but is he really just kowtowing to a big real-estate developer who heavily supported his campaign? Interestingly, there was a time when de Blasio was more blasé about these animal-rights concerns. In fact, when he had the chance as a City Council member to support...

It’s hard to forget meeting a man who hated Mahatma Gandhi. I once did, though. No, he wasn’t some erstwhile viceroy lamenting lost glory days, but an Indian born and raised in the land of sati and saris. The reason for his ire? He said that when Gandhi drove the British out, India lost everything: technicians, engineers, expertise, bureaucratic integrity, etc. In the same vein, I have a Zambian friend who has argued that colonialism had a positive impact, in that it brought civilization to the lands — such as his — it touched. And, in fact, even that Kenyan...

A famed man of letters and sexual liaisons who never had a kind word for traditionalism, the late Gore Vidal hobnobbed with the rich and influential and locked horns with William F. Buckley on television. During one of these debates, Vidal called Buckley a “pro-crypto-Nazi,” prompting Buckley to call him a “queer.” Only one of these accusations was true, but both pale in comparison to a charge Vidal’s own relatives are now leveling at the writer. That, as the Daily Mail puts it, he was a “globe-trotting paedophile who preyed on underage boys.” [snip] his is why Vidal has plenty...

Old utopians may die, but utopianism never does fade away. While speaking at a summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners in Warsaw on Monday, Nobel Laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa added Modern-day Moses of Magog to his résumé, advocating a “secular Ten Commandments” as a basis for universal values. Said Walesa, “We need to agree on common values for all religions as soon as possible, a kind of secular Ten Commandments on which we will build the world of tomorrow,” reports France 24. Ah, “build the world of tomorrow.” Somehow that reminds me of WWI being “the war...

Will the slights and salt-in-wound exacerbations ever end? It's not enough that white people are cast as the source of all the world's woes as people find that we, increasingly, leave a bad taste in their mouths. Now we hear that even man's best friend doesn't find us very palatable. Writes The Independent in a piece titled "'Racist' LA police dogs only bite Latinos and African-Americans": Police officers in Los Angeles have long faced accusations of institutional racism, but now it appears their dogs may be unjustly discriminatory, too. A new report focusing on the Canine Special Detail of the...

Take a look at the following list and tell me if anything strikes you: Prudence Justice Temperance Courage Faith Hope Charity Viewing these, the Seven Cardinal Virtues, anything make an impression? Okay, now try the Seven Heavenly Virtues of: Chastity Temperance Charity Diligence Patience Kindness Humility Anything? What strikes me is that equality is not among them. Scour great works, such as the Bible, and you won't find talk of equality. Not one bit -- that is, unless you consider The Communist Manifesto a great work. One thing about virtues -- which are defined as "good moral habits" -- is...

If you had told someone in the 1950s that, in about two generations, homosexuality would largely be normalized and faux (same-sex) marriage would be gaining widespread approval, they’d have called you crazy. Never, ever under the stars and stripes. Why, pugnacious pundit Bill O’Reilly himself opined as recently as 10 to 15 years ago that faux marriage would never be accepted in America. Ah, what a difference a decade makes in the (mis?)information age, where ideas can be transmitted worldwide at a button’s touch. I can’t tell you exactly when I knew faux marriage would gain traction — not in...

What has lifted more people out of poverty, charity or economic freedom? It's not even close. Charity is wonderful, and I'll be the first to say we have an obligation to share our gifts, be they material, intellectual, or talent oriented. Yet whether our redistributionist endeavor is charity -- and charity is voluntary redistribution -- or the less noble, coercive outsourcing of charity known as government programs, there first must be wealth to redistribute. But where does wealth come from? If we go back to biblical times and beyond, a man might be considered wealthy if he had 70 goats....

Liberals truly are fonts of sophistication and erudition. We know this because liberals tell us, and liberals are smart. They would never mangle words as does Dubya Bush or misspell “potato” like hapless Dan Quayle. But there are some things they would do, and what follows is a sampling. [...] Dog Food Afternoon But perhaps KTVU had graduated from the Patsy Schroeder School of Comedy. During a 1990s budget battle, the Democrats said that if the GOP got its way, the elderly would have to eat dog food to afford medicine. Radio host Rush Limbaugh then spoofed this demagoguery in...

Liberal icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts." But that was decades ago, and today more leftists than ever have graduated from confusion to delusion and believe they're entitled to their own fiction. A good example is naturalist David Attenborough, who recently complained that man is a plague upon our planet. He warns that our burgeoning population will ensure that we consume the world's resources like a sun-occluding swarm of high-tech locusts. Writes The Telegraph: "We are a plague on the Earth. It's coming home to roost...

We all know what can happen when kids and guns mix. And today I will tell you some stories about that very thing. The kids' names were Kendra and Alyssa, and then there was the 11-year-old boy whose name we just don't know. What we do know is that they lived in places called Bryan County, Albuquerque, and Palmview. We know that guns were in their homes -- and that something horrible befell them. Last year, 12-year-old Oklahoman Kendra St. Clair was home alone, unsupervised. At some point she accessed her mother's handgun -- a .40-caliber Glock. Then Kendra pulled...

Really, I can’t completely blame foreigners who hold us Americans in contempt. I know that’s a controversial statement, but my reasoning is explained with two questions: Do people generally respect those who allow themselves to be used as a doormat? And, then, how do people usually feel about the character of a traitor? Now consider what foreigners see from modern America. We not only allow aliens to transgress our borders and often refuse to deport them, but we then also sue each other, with many among us fighting tooth and nail for the “rights” of these interlopers. Where other nations...

If you’re a Democrat operative forced to resign for facilitating vote fraud, what do you do for a follow-up? If you said brutally attack your girlfriend, cracking her skull, your name just might be Patrick Moran. And if you’ve skated on both counts, your father just might be Jim Moran, Democrat congressman from Virginia. Patrick Moran was the field director for his father’s campaign before the election — that is, until a sting operation caught him on video coaching an undercover reporter on how to commit vote fraud. He sounded as if he’d already achieved semi-pro status, too. But since...

It isn’t entirely true that, as Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s often the case that power simply allows people the luxury of lowering façades and showing their true colors. A good example is the recent behavior of many on the Left. Commentator Donald Kaul just wrote that he had no problem with guns being pried from their owners’ “cold, dead hands” and that Republican leaders should be dragged around a parking lot with a pick-up truck. A European college professor recommended the execution of “Climate Change Deniers” and the Pope. Closer to home, an...

I have never been so unhappy to be right. I've long said that Barack Obama would win re-election, and two weeks ago I stated as much in print. In making this prediction, I was almost alone among traditionalist pundits, with some, such as Dick Morris (Mr. Batting Zero), actually forecasting a Mitt Romney landslide. And, no, I'm not pointing this out to numb despair with some perverse kind of gloating, like a man consumed in flames looking to suck on an ice cube. It's because of why I knew that Romney would lose: America is lost. And there is something...