Free Republic

Editor's note: This comic was temporarily taken down at 2:20 p.m. to alleviate web traffic and prevent the web site from crashing. It was republished at 4:50 p.m

Under Barack Obama, the phenomenon of class resentment is a live political issue When David Cameron visits the United States this week, he will find a country whose national political argument has become more like our own in Britain than probably he – and certainly I – would ever have imagined. For America has learned, thanks to Barack Obama's crash course in European-style government, about the titanic force of class differences. The president's determination to transform the US into a social democracy, complete with a centrally run healthcare programme and a redistributive tax system, has collided rather magnificently with America's...

On his pre-inaugural visit to Ben’s Chili Bowl, a landmark for Washington’s African-American community, President Barack Obama was asked by a cashier if he wanted his change back. “Nah, we straight,” Obama replied. The phrase was so subtle some listeners missed it. The reporter on pool duty quoted Obama as saying, “No, we’re straight.” But many other listeners did not miss it. A video of the exchange became an Internet hit, and there was a clear moment of recognition among many blacks, who got a kick out of their Harvard-educated president sounding, as one commenter wrote on a hip-hop site,...

So the latest four-day episode in Athens and other Greek cities comes as no great surprise. The Greeks are a feisty people. This is meant as a compliment - broadly speaking - just in case any Greek readers should take it the wrong way. Hitler was so impressed by Greek bravery that he accorded Greek soldiers full military honours, almost the sole example among captive nations in the East - or at least professed to do so at first. That said, these riots are roughly what eurosceptics expected to see, at some point, at the periphery of the euro-zone as...

Personal attacks and inaccurate accusations are flying as John McCain and Barack Obama “take the gloves off” in the home stretch of the U.S. presidential election, and Americans might have a hard time imagining that it could get any worse. But as voters in the following five countries can attest, it definitely can. Nigeria General Election, April 2007 The offenders: then President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and current President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua How it got ugly: This comically flawed election dashed any hopes that Africa’s most populous country might lead the way for democratic reform throughout the...

Considering the many jubilant boasts by "flat world" devotees in recent years, you might have been tempted to regard economic globalization as a juggernaut, powered by inexorable forces of technology and history. Big mistake. There's no preordained direction for the world economy--only an undetermined future that will take the shape of whatever ideas and policies we choose to uphold. The lack of an intellectual defense of capitalism has left free markets vulnerable. "The power of the state is reasserting itself," said Daniel Yergin, co-author of The Commanding Heights and a free-market optimist , in The Wall Street Journal recently. In...

Under Hugo Chávez, the right political connections are a passport to wealth, whisky and a Hummer “PETROLEUM socialism” is how Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president, recently dubbed the blend of military populism and neo-Marxist statism to which he is subjecting his country. Its prime objective, he insists, is to improve the lot of the country's poor majority. Mr Chávez proclaims that “being rich is bad”. He frequently lashes out at what he calls “the oligarchy”. Strange, then, that the streets of Caracas are clogged with big new 4x4s (Hummers are especially favoured), it is hard to get a table at the...

I try to see as many little movies as I can, because you never know when you’ll make a discovery. Usually, I feel like I’ve wasted my time but whenever I find a unique film, it enriches my life. End of the Spear is one of those films.

I have posted this at my website (link above). "The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity." --George Washington There have been several people, from politicians to pundits, that have opined about how to--or whether to-- rebuild the city of New Orleans. Right here and now, I will take a stand: REBUILD THE CITY. In the wake of a natural disaster of epic proportions, we also now have an opportunity of epic proportions. Not since the era of the Great Depression...

Virginia State's Leftist Racists By Malcolm A. Kline CampusReportOnline.net | May 18, 2004 How is it possible, half a century after the Supreme Court’s Brown decision, for respected, tenured, award-winning African-American professor Jean Cobb to lose benefits at a university she has taught at for more than three decades? “She is a Republican and an objective scholar who takes a dim view of the political correctness scourge, and of those who use the classroom to indoctrinate students into radical (Marxist/black separatist) politics,” her friend, Dr. Carey Stronach, said recently. “For this she should be applauded, but instead, it has been...