Free Republic

Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand reminds us, in his essay entitled "Is Unity among the Faithful the Highest Value?," that, "There is another great danger which goes together with the distortion of love of neighbor: the danger of putting community above truth, and of implicitly making peace the highest value. Unfortunately this tendency to regard community as more important than truth is very widespread in the holy Church today. The first great error which we find here is the separation of community from truth. All genuine community among men presupposes that they encounter one another in a certain realm of goods....

One of the sad things about our country, for my money, is that our big shots, our movers and shakers, have become too passive. We especially see this in education. Our community leaders (in business, politics, the military, or whatever) should stand up to the Education Establishment and shout: “You are doing a lousy job! Millions of kids can’t even read.” But these “leaders” don’t seem to have a word to say. I can’t figure out whether our big shots have been intimidated by professors of education. That’s pathetic. Or our whole society has gotten old and lazy? That’s scary....

Founding fathers rolling over in their graves in 3..2..1..

Featured Term (selected at random):BEGUINES Communities of lay women founded in the Netherlands in the twelfth century. Devoting themselves to the care of the disabled and poor, they lived a semi-monastic life, free to own property and return to the world at their pleasure. Each residence of two or three persons was called a béguinage, a self-supporting unit with a chapel in the enclosure for general use. Without a common rule or superiors, some adopted the regulations of the third order of St. Francis. They greatly influenced the lives of the people for good, especially in educational and charitable works,...

Revisiting the resilient lifestyle… Things finally collapse, and you go to the basement, start digging out survival gear and freeze dry food. You gather the family around the radio, shotgun in hand and begin worrying about how long the “stuff” will last. OR You get up at six AM as usual, open a bag of your favorite coffee, mixing it 50/50 with the chickory root you gathered in the summer. Opening the spout on the Big Berkey water filter, you fill the percolator you picked up at a yard sale, for 2 bucks. You set the coffee on the woodstove...

Leaders of the resurrected radical group ACORN are lobbying the Obama administration in what appears to be a concerted effort to game the electoral system to help Democrats, new evidence suggests. At least five Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now leaders have visited the White House this year alone. One of those ACORN officials has been involved in vetting Department of Justice hires who may help to enforce the voter fraud-enabling National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), also known as the Motor-Voter law. The Department has come under fire for refusing to enforce Section 8, which requires states to remove...

Obama at anti-war protest, 2002 (Source: Verum Serum) Just twenty or so years ago, Barack Obama wouldn’t just have supported the Occupy protests. He would have organized them. From Stanley Kurtz’s essential Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, pp. 117-8: In fact, Obama personally helped plan one of UNO’s most confrontational actions of the eighties [in 1988]: a break-in meant to intimidate a coalition of local business and neighborhood leaders into dropping a landfill expansion deal. We know of Obama’s involvement in this demonstration only because his supporters in 2008 felt it necessary to rebut charges...

On Saturday night thousands of Occupy Chicago protesters cheered the communists as they spoke at the rally and march in downtown Chicago ... That’s right. The communist leader is also an organizer for Obama’s re-election campaign.

Rep. Waters: Obama ‘got carried away’By Alicia M. Cohn, Daniel Strauss and Mike Lillis 09/26/11 09:19 PM ET Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Monday tried to downplay friction between the black community and President Obama but warned the president might have gotten “carried away” in remarks made over the weekend. Waters, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), appeared in a number of media interviews on Monday following Obama’s speech to the CBC Gala on Saturday, where the president told the audience to “stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.” Waters said that there was room for improvement in the...

The U.S. dollar may weaken and Treasury yields rise when Asian markets reopen on Monday, though any selling in response to ratings agency S&P's downgrade of the United States is likely to be tempered by the escalating crisis in the euro zone. The S&P cut in the U.S. long-term credit rating by a notch to AA-plus is an unprecedented blow and results from concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. It called the outlook "negative," signaling another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months. "The initial reaction will be a high degree of uncertainty...

I stumbled upon an encouraging blog some time ago and have enjoyed reading it ever since. The blog’s author is a pastor in the Midwest and has an excellent way of writing and pointing to God’s truth. Reading this today I had a couple thoughts. The first took me to James 2 where James writes: “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?” The second thought takes me to Hebrews...

DAIA request for the injunction lists some 76 websites which it says are 'highly discriminatory,' including some which deny the Holocaust. The umbrella organization of Argentina's Jewish community, DAIA, has won an injunction against Google, preventing the world's most popular search engine from "suggesting" anti-Semitic and racist websites to its users. The presiding judge at the Buenos Aires court, Dr. Molina Portela, also ruled that Google cannot run adverts on these websites, which are illegal under Argentine law. The DAIA request for the injunction listed some 76 websites which it described as "highly discriminatory," including some which deny the Holocaust...

Have you ever stopped to think about the Genesis account of creation in light of God’s own admission that something wasn’t good? After all, we see in Genesis 1 that after everything God created he declared it “good,” culminating with the creation of man, which He called “very good.” So why in chapter 2, verse 18 does God admit that something is “not good?”

My best friend’s name is Steve. We’ve known each other since high school in the late 70’s. How this fits into topics I’ve already covered has to do with what happened in our lives over a 12-month period a few years ago. After the collapse of my marriage and the ensuing divorce Steve was there for me.

Keeping the Dream Alive: President Obama's Work with the African American CommunityPosted by Michael Blake on April 08, 2011 at 10:30 AM EDT On Wednesday, April 6th, the National Action Network kicked off its 20th anniversary convention, celebrating "20 years of struggle, 20 years of progress, 20 years of shaping history." During the day, four Cabinet members--Education Secretary Duncan, Attorney General Holder, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan--spoke to convention attendees about how the Obama Administration has been working with the African American community. That night, President Obama spoke at the Keepers of the Dream Awards Gala....

Reporting from North Fork, Calif. — Located almost in the dead center of California, North Fork is like a lot of other rural outposts: It's losing businesses and hopes for a turnaround. But there's nothing typical about the town's biggest booster, Josh Freeman. His efforts to resuscitate this tiny town include launching a local currency emblazoned with butterflies and hummingbirds in a bid to keep wealth in the community.

INVESTIGATE THIS!by Ann CoulterJanuary 5, 2011The Republicans are back in charge in the House of Representatives this week, and not a moment too soon! Forget "stimulus" bills and "shovel-ready" bailouts (for public school teachers, who need shovels for what they're teaching), the current financial crisis, which is the second Great Depression, was created slowly and methodically by Democrat hacks running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past 18 years. As even Obama's treasury secretary admitted in congressional hearings, "Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system." And if it's something Tim Geithner...

Acid-reflux suppressing drugs may modestly boost the risk of both community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia, according to a meta-analysis. Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use predicted a 27% elevated risk of pneumonia overall (95% confidence interval 1.11 to 1.46), Chun-Sick Eom, MD, MPH, of Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea, and colleagues found.

Voting in Central Florida was quite a sight when the polls opened at 07:00. Still dark, the voting place was a local library. At the door was a poll watcher who had been doing this for twenty plus years, he commented that he had never seen a line form in this quiet, semi bedroom community. He was happy to see a couple of voters show up, per hour, throughout the day during elections past. When the polls opened, there were twenty plus people, already in line to vote. The system went smoothly and everyone had an eye toward anything that...

Huang Kexue, federal authorities say, is a new kind of spy. For five years, Mr. Huang was a scientist at a Dow Chemical lab in Indiana, studying ways to improve insecticides. But before he was fired in 2008, Mr. Huang began sharing Dow’s secrets with Chinese researchers, authorities say, then obtained grants from a state-run foundation in China with the goal of starting a rival business there. Now, Mr. Huang, who was born in China and is a legal United States resident, faces a rare criminal charge — that he engaged in economic espionage on China’s behalf. Law enforcement officials...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama met with activist-actor George Clooney at the White House on Tuesday to discuss U.S. involvement in Sudan ahead of a critical election early next year in Africa's largest nation. Clooney recently returned from Sudan, and is asking the U.S. and world community to use international pressure and robust diplomacy to prevent violence ahead of the Jan. 9 election. The election is an independence referendum on south Sudan that is likely to split the country in two, and there are fears that the vote could lead to a new outbreak of north-south civil war.<>

Humor … Just in case the independents swing back left, here's how to win big in November... > First, explain to your employer that you have pledged the weeks leading up to the election to get out the vote. Be bold. Ask your employer for a matching financial contribution. There will be a lot of gas to pay for. If your employer is a conservative Republican, conclude the discussion with the secret society handshake. If your employer is a RINO or Democrat you should make sure your eyes are watering. Just think about all of the paid time off you...

If there are tensions between urban police departments and the African-American community, this kind of stuff won’t help one bit. An Indianapolis police officer was invited to give a presentation at a youth symposium where organizers staged a fight to see how the [white] officer would react. Full story...

PRINCETON -- The borough and the township have agreed to have a May 22 start for advocates for immigrants to issue community identification cards, according to a report in The New York Times. The report said at least six city governments across the the U.S. endorse or issue photo identification cards to residents who are illegal immigrants. Similar programs are operating in Trenton and Asbury Park.

For the first time in more than a year, southern Baluchi Valley residents have been able to speak with Afghan Government representatives about their local needs. The discussion was made possible by the increased level of security delivered by Operation Jenub Fayda, a partnership between 1st Mentoring Task Force (MTF-1) and Afghan National Army (ANA) 4th Brigade, which concluded just ten days before. Commanding Officer of the Brisbane-based MTF-1, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Blain said that the efforts of MTF-1 and ANA soldiers in the southern Baluchi Valley have directly contributed to greater community engagement with the Afghan Government. "We facilitated...

4/29/2010 - JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq (AFNS) -- e first Iraqi Kids Day of the year here served as part of the ongoing base effort to positively engage the local populace April 24. Although past events of this kind had an underlying theme to teach the children about health and safety, this event was held for one purpose, to have fun. Thirty-four children from a local orphanage were bussed on base to play games, share culture and enjoy friendships. "These kids are so, animated it's funny," said Tech. Sgt. Amy Shanty, a volunteer at the event from the 332nd Expeditionary...

4/15/2010 - QARAYT AR RUFUSH, Iraq (AFNS) -- Security forces members patrolled the area here April 4 to increase proficiency in the Iraqi police and increase the community's confidence in them and the government of Iraq. Airmen from the 732nd Expeditionary Security Forces Det. 2 trained and coached the local Iraqi police per the request of the local police commander. During this mission, the Airmen trained the police in community policing and mentored them during a patrol through a village that had recently been the target of multiple terrorist attacks. "These patrols teach the IPs how to interact with the...

The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues -- six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. "It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said. Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the...

3/8/2010 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- The American Provincial Reconstructive Team in Zabul and 451st Air Expeditionary Wing leaders joined the provincial governor and community leaders as they gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony Feb. 25 of the newly-built all-boys Sheik Mati High School and dormitory here. The 240-bed facility will be home to young men as they attend the school built in 2009. Provincial Governor Mohammad Ashraf Naseri, who officiated the event, said he is pleased with the recent successes in the community. "We are excited and the community is very receptive to have the school," Governor Naseri said....

Give a man a Fish and feed him for the Day. Teach him how to fish.... This was he verse running through our minds. King Vanity and I used our newly aquired private shuttle bus to volenteer in our community. Our City of Newport allowed us to shuttle Seafood/Wine fest folks via a 3 day taxi permit. What a wonderful exp. King Vanity was able to work for two days as the co-pilot as we picked folks up/dropped them of as private door to door drops in he largest for non profit event for our community of the year. So...

Alaska State Troopers are investigating the actions of a pair of vigilantes alleged to have made forcible citizens arrests of two young fugitives accused in a series of burglaries in the Anchor Point area over the past two months. The fugitives, a boyfriend and girlfriend duo, were served up for troopers, who found them bound with zip ties and disarmed of the weapons they were believed to have stolen during at least nine burglaries perpetrated since December. Items stolen from the cabin of Mark Cocke, who would later be involved in the citizen's arrest on Monday, included a Ruger .44...

President Barack Obama will meet with chief executive officers and presidents from a dozen community banks today to discuss his proposals to boost small-business lending and his plans for regulatory overhaul.

President Barack Obama is spending almost $600 million to build community health centers and to make medical records easier to find. The White House on Wednesday painted the spending -- part of the $787 billion stimulus bill the president championed during his first days in office -- as a way to add jobs to a struggling economy. Officials also linked it to the administration's broader push for an overhaul of the nation's health systems that remains unfinished in Congress.

Conservative Republicans are capitalizing on the troubles of community activist group ACORN—ranging from charges of voter registration fraud to embarrassing videos of its employees—to revive their long-standing fight against a federal law that grades banks on their investments in poor and minority neighborhoods. The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act was intended to end redlining, a practice in which banks in effect walled off many inner-city neighborhoods from mortgage loans. But some GOP lawmakers say it has outlived its purpose and is being used inappropriately by ACORN to shake down banks for money. They want to repeal the law, scale it back...

House Minority Leader John Boehner introduced legislation Tuesday that would break all federal government ties with ACORN, and Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation by the Justice Department House Minority Leader John Boehner introduced legislation Tuesday that would break all federal government ties with ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation by the Justice Department. He cited reports that ACORN may "have been engaged in illegal activity" by aiding and abetting tax evasion, prostitution, human trafficking, fraud and...

Here’s a thought to ponder. Let’s think of a community of families that each agree to put aside a minimum of $100 CASH a month. They agree that this cash will henceforth ONLY be spent within the community – and physical cash will be the only currency accepted. Any purchases not made in the community will be made with other resources. There would be no “central bank” within the community. There would be no central figure to “trust”. The only requirement is a verbal agreement to use that money within the community by buying and selling with other members, or...

"The Democrats did not lose Congress in 1994 because they failed to pass health care reform. They lost Congress in 1994 because they failed to rally the public behind health care reform. Had Democrats successfully sold Clintoncare to the public and then passed it, their majorities might have been saved. But had Democrats gone ahead and passed it anyway, under the conditions that existed in summer of 1994, their losses likely would have been even greater" "1994 was fundamentally a culling of Democrats who were too liberal for their Republican-leaning districts. Republicans defeated 34 incumbents that year." "There were two...

Students would pay out-of-state tuition and wouldn't get government grants or loans Community colleges in North Carolina would be required to admit students who are not legal residents of the United States if the state approves a proposed policy. The state Board of Community Colleges will consider a proposal that would admit students who aren’t in the country legally and require them to pay the out-of-state tuition rate.

Analysis: Critics co-opt Obama organizing playbookBy LIZ SIDOTI (AP) – 1 day ago WASHINGTON — There's a certain irony here. The 20th century community organizer who used 21st century tools for his people-powered White House campaign now finds himself besieged by citizens airing their grievances at 19th century-inspired town hall style meetings. Barack Obama's top legislative goal hangs in the balance and his popularity is suffering as critics co-opt his tech-savvy organizing methods, tag him as a boogyman and disrupt local gatherings on his proposed health care overhaul. Is the groundbreaking campaigner, whose White House political arm is aptly called...

I have a question to you, my fellow freeper community: Fellow Patriots: Forgive the vanity, but I have a question, and would like a solid answer(s) becuase it is really the only way that we will continue to build the movement? WE ALL KNOW that the majority of the population is against Obamacare/Nationalized Healthcare, however eventually we will reach a plateau of support against the President/Congress Plans (eventually protests, media against this plan) will reach a point where the numbers probably will not change mucy (I'd say 65% Against 35% for), anyway my question is how do we reach those...

YAKIMA, Wash. -- One of the most remote communities in the lower 48 states is finally set to get phone service. The National Park Service is allowing a small telephone company to use public land to bring service to Stehekin, about 100 miles northeast of Seattle in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. Stehekin has about 80 year-round residents and is reachable only by boat, float plane or a several-day hike through the wilderness. The phone company, WeavTel, has been pursuing a chance to install telephone service there for years, despite opposition from some residents who don't want it. A...

Forget Norman Rockwell. The town hall meetings that many representatives and senators are holding back in their districts to make the case for a health care overhaul are turning into knockdown-dragouts. Some of the aggressive questioning, and even heckling, of legislators meeting with constituents across the country appears to be staged. A memo on "best practices" for disrupting town hall meetings has surfaced on the Web. A conservative group in Connecticut called Right Principles laid out how it "conducted an action" at a town hall meeting of Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) in late May, even calling it a "potential playbook"...

Robert Nisbet’s Quest Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet’s 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of “classic.” What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries - or ours - is that one of the deepest flaws of the modern era was its hostility to the reality of groups. Modern liberalism (developed, among others by Thomas Hobbes, and later John Locke - and, at its root, Nisbet argued, in developments of Protestant theology) was broadly conceived in the backdrop of a hostility to organizations, institutions, communities and groups by which people defined their...

We’ve all seen it. In our schools, our children’s schools, public meetings, television shows, leadership seminars, political speeches, and even in legislation supported by the President, the message is clear: we should all be doing community service. The fact is that the call to service is greater now than at any time in our country’s past, and the pressure to provide it even greater. The pressure to conform to the growing demand to volunteer your self, in body and bankbook, can be daunting. When confronted with a group of peers, all telling you how much you are needed, it can...

As tutors, mentors and role models, these young leaders make a difference in the lives of children, and transform schools and neighborhoods in 18 U.S. locations and Johannesburg, South Africa. Just as important, during their year of service corps members develop civic leadership skills they can use throughout a lifetime of community service.

PORT O’CONNOR, Texas, May 21, 2009 – Because soldiers spend most of their time with other soldiers, their everyday lives seem completely normal to them. But every once in a while, they run into someone who tells them that what they do is extraordinary. Motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders show their support to servicemembers at the Warrior's Weekend in Port O'Connor, Texas, May 16, 2009. Local residents treated wounded soldiers and veterans to free fishing at the event. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Stephen Decatur  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Pvt. Michael Varner, a cannon crew...

However, at Maryland-based First United Corp.'s annual meeting of shareholders yesterday, one banker spent a considerable amount of time trying to set the record straight about who's responsible for the nation's economic woes, and -- more to the point -- who's not. (A slideshow of the presentation may be found here in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.) For those keeping track, the government gave First United a $30 million infusion of capital on Jan. 30. The bank got the money through the Treasury Department's Capital Purchase Program -- part of TARP -- in exchange for 30,000 shares...

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 27, 2009 – More than 240 Wardak province residents became the first to graduate from the new Afghan Public Protection Force program designed to enhance security throughout Afghanistan. After a rigorous, three-week training program, the graduates proudly accepted their certificates of completion yesterday in front of an audience that included high-level officials from the Afghan government, Wardak province elders, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and other distinguished guests. The Afghan Public Protection Force is an Afghan-led program that is designed to provide enhanced security to designated...

My mom was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer a little under five months ago. It had spread into the lymph nodes, and getting the news was one of those things that I will never forget. I would throw myself under the wheels of a bus if doing so would protect my mother; and hearing that she had cancer - the very same form of cancer that took her own mother's life - was frightening. My mom went through 3 months of chemo that left her as bald as a cue ball, and had surgery this week. She is now...

FORT HUACHUCA — Army soldiers are all volunteers. It is also said that when a soldier marries, the resulting family also volunteers to serve the country. Some soldiers and their families take volunteering a step further by being active in their local community. That can be said of the Dean family on Fort Huachuca. The family of four — Sgt. 1st Class Chad Dean, his wife Charity and their two teenage sons, Brandon, 15, and Bradley, 13 — spend hours in Scouting, youth football and other activities on and off the post. Like many parents who volunteer their services, Chad...