Free Republic

My colleague Sonny Bunch is on the wrong side of history. Even worse, his "qualified defense" of U.S. soccer fandom is an affront to the exceptionalistic values on which this country was founded. In a just world, Bunch’s desperate attempt to curry favor with the mob of faux-patriot hipsters known as "U.S. soccer fans" would invite charges of treason, or worse. In just world, we wouldn’t be having this "debate." In describing soccer as "an opportunity for America to prove that we’re great even at things we actively disdain," Bunch reveals a gross misunderstanding of the mindless cult he longs...

Over the past few weeks, legislatures, school boards, and parents have risen to challenge critical race theory (CRT) as a divisive ideology that teaches our children to become racists. Their objections have brought this once-obscure academic theory to the front pages of newspapers around the country. They’ve also raised some burning questions: What is CRT? What makes it so objectionable? How can this central pillar of “antiracist” training be racist? The answer begins, as so many do these days, with the progressive penchant for the redefining—or rather, deconstruction—of words. “Antiracist” training is racist because progressives have redefined “racism.” CRT scholars...

....In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world....

At first glance, the new nationalism of conservatives will seem benign and even uncontroversial. In his book “The Case for Nationalism,” Rich Lowry defines nationalism as flowing from a people’s “natural devotion to their home and to their country.” Yoram Hazony, in his book “The Virtue of Nationalism,” also has a rather anodyne definition of nationalism. It means “that the world is governed best when nations agree to cultivate their own traditions, free from interference by other nations.” There is nothing particularly controversial at all about these statements. Defined in these terms, it sounds like little more than simply defending...

On Thursday Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s Senior Director for European Affairs appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify before Adam Schiff’s sham secret chamber impeachment During the hearing Morrison told the committee he was not concerned about anything illegal that was discussed during the Trump-Zelensky phone call. But that he did have concerns about his subordinate LTC Alex Vindman who he had issues with in the past. Jim Morrison is not the only one who had issues with Adam Schiff’s controversial start witness in the impeachment scam. Retired Lieutenant Colonel (LTTC) Jim Hickman worked with then Major Vindman...

As a presidential candidate, the mogul told Republican primary audiences that George W. Bush had lied the United States into Iraq; that said war had done a “tremendous disservice to humanity”; and that America could have saved countless lives by investing $5 trillion in domestic infrastructure instead. As commander-in-chief, Trump has suggested that there is no moral distinction between the U.S. and other great powers; that American foreign policy in the Middle East is largely dictated by the interests of arms manufacturers; and that the U.S. judges foreign regimes by their utility to American economic interests, not their commitment to...

I moved to California from New York City in 1976. The founder of what was then America's largest Jewish retreat center, the Brandeis Institute (not affiliated with the university), Dr. Shlomo Bardin, asked me to work as his assistant. He was 75 years-old; I was 25. One weekend the next year, he announced to the membership he wanted me to succeed him. To everyone's shock, he died that very week. It was then renamed the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. The institute was located in Simi Valley, California, then more a small town than even a small city. It had all of...

Perhaps the strangest thing in modern discourse is that anytime something bad in our country's history is mentioned, the left paints it as uniquely American. Yet, anytime there is a remarkable and heroic event, the left ascertains it was an achievement accomplished by all of humanity. This was evidenced yet again by Hollywood’s portrayal of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969 as a "human achievement" and deciding to omit the iconic scene of Neil Armstrong planting the American flag in outer space in an upcoming movie, First Man. As Cortney covered yesterday Ryan Gosling, the Canadian actor...

We’ve experienced a miracle in our day that a lot of us thought we might never see again. The conservative base wanted a consequential President; one who could overcome a combination of our country’s decline, the neutering of conservative principle, the increasingly poor economy, the leftward lurch of our major institutions, the suicidal tendencies grafted into our country by the left, and the increasing mindlessness of our culture. Trump filled the ticket as a candidate. We’ve seen his Presidency for the better part of a year. We can now say emphatically, this is the most effective first year of any...

These Colors, Don’t Ruin: Team USA goes incognito by Daniel Clark The United States national soccer team put on a dismal performance in a recent 2-0 loss in Guatemala, during which they were unfocused and incohesive, and generally very much unlike themselves. You might not have even known that the USA was playing if the graphics on your screen hadn't told you so, because the players were not wearing our national colors. Instead, they wore black jerseys with patches of blue and burgundy on the shoulders. If you didn't know better, you’d have thought the Guatemalans were playing against some...

Donald Trump vowed Thursday to “rebuild our depleted military” and ensure America’s soldiers are the best-equipped in the world as he addressed the American Legion's annual convention – and sought to rebut Hillary Clinton’s suggestion to the same crowd a day earlier that he doesn’t believe America is “exceptional.” Kicking off the address in Cincinnati, Ohio, by invoking his campaign slogan, “America First,” Trump tried to settle any doubts about his support for the Armed Forces. He called for a state-of-the-art missile defense, a “total reform” of the Veterans Affairs Department and a policy of “peace through strength.” “Nobody will...

When James Truslow Adams invented the phrase "American Dream" in 1931, did he have in mind some nebulous tabula rasa that you or I could put anything you or I wanted to put onto it? Or did Adams have something specific in mind? What was James Truslow Adams' dream? When Adams invented the phrase, here is what he wrote: (the most widely quoted paragraph, seen everywhere around the internet) If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been...

As we celebrate the exceptionalism of America, let us also take some time of introspection into who we are now. Have we given up our exceptionalism? Will we will remain the nation founded with God as the source of all rights and blessings? For past decade, much debate has transpired over the term “American Exceptionalism.” Two months after assuming office (and while overseas speaking to allies), Barack Obama said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” In April 2015, Donald Trump was asked to...

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp turned down the chance to visit Facebook last month, telling Greta von Susteren at “On the Record" that he thought the conservative confab over political bias allegations was merely a political PR stunt after they got caught. Schlapp noted during the CPAC 2016 conference that the most important conservative message for millennials was one that stressed American exceptionalism, and an excellent vehicle for transmitting that message was the annual CPAC event with over 10,000 attendees. However, Facebook’s refusal to publicize CPAC's message to its millions of millennial users spoke volumes, and led Schlapp to nix the...

Former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton is watching President Obama’s upcoming visit to Hiroshima at week’s end with a keen eye. Mr. Obama is due to visit the Japanese city on Friday, the first president to do so since the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the site 70 years ago, by order of Harry Truman, a Democrat. Mr. Bolton, however, has already crafted his response to the visit: a public-service ad produced through the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which focuses on national security issues here and abroad. “President Obama has made it his mission to apologize for...

We've been a fed a myth about heroic individuals -- and that allows the 1 percent to prosper at everyone's expense. Americans have been deceived by the notion that individual desires preempt the needs of society; by the Ayn-Rand/Reagan/Thatcher aversion to government regulation; by the distorted image of 'freedom' as winner-take-all capitalism; by the assurance that the benefits of greed will spread downwards to everyone. Our current capitalist-driven inequalities will only be rectified when people realize that a strong community makes successful individuals, not the other way around. These are a few of the ways we would benefit with a...

Donald Trump grabbed many of us with his immigration hole-shot. His all-purpose chlorine bleach burn-outs wiping out political correctness have been equally spectacular-not just for the strutting, but for calling out to the NHRA grandstand-crowd, the erstwhile silent disenfranchised majority.All Donald had to do was keep his front end under control. Wheelies can be entertaining, but they usually lead to the wrong end of a bill of sale.But no: Trump couldn't resist cracking open the nitrous bottle when he should have pinched the valve and locked it away in the trunk. Soon enough, our quarter-mile rooster will need a tow...

Doubtless you have heard more than once the term “American Exceptionalism.” It implies, in short, that we are somehow special, different, superior. We are the “city upon a hill” whose freedoms and accomplishments set us apart. Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase midway through the 19th century, and it has enjoyed constant deployment by politicians and pundits ever since, because it lights a warm bulb of self-satisfaction in many bellies … and people feeling good about themselves are easier to convince. Salesmen thrived on this axiom before Babylon’s bricks were laid. For the sake of comparison, here’s something exceptional: Médecins...

Part of the Trump Phenomenon is his willingness to speak to something that politicians won’t; that America is the successor to the British Empire. The British Empire was a force for good. The monarch reigned and did not rule. The people ruled, especially as time went on. The Empire got better when it embraced the fact that it had power and that such power could be used for good as a matter of national policy such as in ending the Atlantic slave trade, eliminating social barriers in its colonies and dominions, providing a common language and promoting equality while allowing...

The images animal-biz solicitors use to get money, are generally not of abused animals. Search for such images, you'll discover that's not what you're being shown. Think about your own experience with dogs: this is not a look of fear or sadness. This image shows a typical dog's feeling of love, affection. It is a complete misrepresentation to portray this as sadness. Animal -biz's couldn't make money with that real images of horrific abuse that you can find by searching for "abused dogs". The love-look, coupled with pathos music and an announcer's sad tone of voice, are what it takes...