Free Republic

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM Daniel 2 By Mr. Louis Liesching (At the Nottingham Conference, May, 1894. First Address) To the student of prophecy my subject may appear a very elementary one, but, as I understand it, we have not come here to speak to those who are students of prophecy, but rather to those who are not. There are many who have an idea that there is a great deal of prophecy which they know nothing about, and which they can know nothing about. Now as to their not knowing about it, I am willing to admit; but I think there is...

  Senior Fellow  John R. Bolton   "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," once wrote Mark Twain. "Greatly exaggerated" also described the repeated, periodic predictions of American decline. Indeed, from the very moment of Independence, there have been those predicting America's demise, decline or irrelevance. The only variation is whether the eclipse of the United States will be produced by its own shortcomings or the unmatchable superiority of those doing the eclipsing. Betting against the United States--a sport even many Americans engage in--may be popular, but is has never proven profitable. Nor will it as long...

Freeping: My First Ten Years Of Free Republic by B-chan*** "I have been sitting here for the last 45 mins looking straight at the sun. there is a host over the sun so i can look at it..its a sign a miracle.. can anyone else look at the sun and see anything?" - classygreeneyedblonde, 2002 *** Ten years ago this week, on 18 July 1998, I joined a then-fledgling news discussion site on the then-fledgling World Wide Web. The name of the site was freerepublic.com. I had logged on before, of course. I remember spending many an hour at my...

John Jay Member of the New York Committee of Correspondence, 1774; Delegate to the Continental Congress, 1774-76; Member of the New York Constitutional Convention, First Chief Justice of New York, 1777; Delegate and elected President of Continental Congress, 1778; Minister to Spain, 1779, Minister to treat the peace with Great Britain, 1782; Secretary of Foreign Affairs, 1784; Contributor to The Federalist, 1788; First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789; Negotiator of Jay Treaty with Great Britain, 1794; Elected Governor of New York, 1797-1801. In 1787 Jay authored three of the articles now collectively called...

BERLIN - More than 1,600 years after it was written in Greek, one of the oldest copies of the Bible will become globally accessible online for the first time this week. From Thursday, sections of the Codex Sinaiticus, which contains the oldest complete New Testament, will be available on the Internet, said the University of Leipzig, one of the four curators of the ancient text worldwide. High resolution images of the Gospel of Mark, several Old Testament books, and notes on the work made over centuries will appear on www.codex-sinaiticus.net as a first step towards publishing the entire manuscript online...

Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship: Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny by Edward J. Erler, Professor of Political Science, California State University, San Bernardino The following is adapted from a speech delivered at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on February 12, 2008, in Phoenix, Arizona. Edward J. Erler is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. He earned his B.A. from San Jose State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Claremont Graduate School. He has published numerous articles on constitutional topics in journals such as Interpretation, the...

TR's Bully Pulpit Sometimes conservatives must ask Americans to put the common good over self-interest. By Joshua Hawley John McCain’s recent comment to the New York Times that he views himself “as a conservative . . . in the Theodore Roosevelt mold” has provoked anguished hand-wringing in various quarters on the Right. Michael Knox Beran’s reaction is typical: He dismisses Roosevelt as an ersatz progressive more interested in self-advancement than genuine reform. Those reforms TR did pursue, Beran argues, amounted to little more than anti-business adventures in state aggrandizement that ultimately failed to address both the corporate misbehavior and the...

Archaeology and the Book of Exodus: Exit From Egypt Archaeologists have made many significant discoveries that make the book of Exodus and the Israelistes' time in Egypt come alive. by Mario Seiglie In earlier issues, The Good News examined several archaeological finds that illuminate portions of the book of Genesis. In this issue we continue our exploration of discoveries that illuminate the biblical accounts, focusing on Exodus, the second book of the Bible.Exodus in English derives from the Latin and means simply "to exit." The book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, an event distinguished by...

THE OLYMPICS PART ONE: BACKGROUND Published July 19th, 2008 As we approach the August 8th opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the XXIX Games of the Olympiad in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, it seems fitting to try to understand exactly what these “games” are. Their history may be examined on various websites, one of the best being http://www.musarium.com/kodak/olympics/olympichistory/. The Official Website of the Olympic Movement declares: “Olympism is a state of mind based on equality of sports which are international and democratic. It is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body,...

It was July 15, 1958, and Second Lieutenant Simon L Leis Jr was nervous. As he waited for orders aboard the USS Taconic, he peered across the rough waters of the Mediterranean towards the yellow sands of Khalde beach, just five miles south of Beirut. Like the other members of the United States Marine Corps that day, Leis was preparing for battle. Briefed to expect the possibility of a hostile reception, the young leatherneck from Cincinnati, Ohio, knew little of the complexities surrounding Lebanon’s predicament. But when the call to arms finally came, he was ready. As whoops of anticipation...

The constant bad news from the liberal media corporations is very dangerous! I've been finding communist/Stalinist propaganda like this all over the net: Frankly the people ranting against "community" don't realize how they've benefited from it - it was non-profit inventions like the internet, computers, modern electricity, phones, x-rays, penicillin, radio waves, and lightbulbs (Göbel), that make life better today. (*Also* state funding of science, medicine, & university research!) "Conservatives" like to rant about how everything good came from greed, but it's just a huge lie: 1. The computer - “This came from pure scientific thought, and not at all...

Historical Progress? by: Bethany Stotts, July 18, 2008 Despite what Americans have been hearing about the nation’s poor civics literacy, renowned education reformer Diane Ravitch suggests that, on historical subjects at least, civics education may have made “some headway.” She writes in the summer edition of Hoover Digest, “Yet compare [the results of two 1986 and 2007 surveys] I did, and it appears to me that those interviewed in the [Common Core] telephone sample of 2007 were somewhat better informed than their parent’s generation of 1986...On most questions of a factual nature, the proportion who answered correctly was either higher...

Under the Heading THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES (THINGS TO COME, A Journal of Biblical Literature, Book One, Volume I, For July 1894, p.17) JEWISH LITERATURE A PALESTINE literature has sprung up, and books, pamphlets, and newspapers are taken up with this now all-absorbing theme. JEWISH SOCIETIES The whole nation [The United Kingdom] is honeycombed with societies having different names, but one object, viz., The Colonization of Palestine. 1. THE CHOVEVI SION is perhaps the largest. Its name means The Lover of Sion, and is from the word [Sorry, I can’t reproduce the Hebrew script], Chavav, which occurs only once...

My new book White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement places conservatism within the big picture of modern American history. The book traces the origins of modern conservatism to the 1920s. It explains why conservativism triumphed in the late twentieth century and why it is has fallen into disarray under the leadership of President George W. Bush. The review of my book in the New York Times by former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum shows that at least some diehard defenders of the Bush administration do not wish to enter into in a serious conversation about...

A 2500 year old Persian treasure dubbed the world's 'first bill of human rights' has been branded a piece of shameless 'propaganda' by German historians. The Cyrus cylinder, which is held by the British Museum, is a legacy of Cyrus the Great - the Persian emperor famed for freeing the Jews of ancient Babylon after conquering the city in 539 BC. A copy of the cylinder, which is covered in cuneiform script supposed to detail the ancient charter of rights, also hangs next to the Security Council Chamber in the United Nations headquarters in New York, where it is held...

THE "LOST" TEN TRIBES In a recent discussion of the subject, by P. Asmussim, in a German periodical, the writer shows that the ten tribes never were "lost." Both in the Books of Kings and in the Assyrian inscriptions we have records of the deportations of the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom, and in leading particulars the accounts agree. In 734 Tiglath-Pileser led into captivity the people of Gilead and of Galilee, and the districts of Issachar, Zebulon, Asher, Naphtali, Northern Dan, Eastern Manasseh and Gad were incorporated into the Assyrian monarchy. The last king of Israel accordingly ruled over...

The latest trend in political punditry with respect to Afghanistan focuses on its "historically unconquerable" nature - highlighted by a long list of unsuccessful foreign efforts paraded in newspaper columns across the nation. The most compelling of these is the attempt to draw hard and fast conclusions from the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion that ended with its ignominious withdrawal a decade later. The first, and most egregious, error in this approach is to refer to everything the West is doing in Afghanistan as a foreign invasion, replete with the imposition of foreign ideas, control and values. The simple truth is...

Everyone knows this, but it's worth repeating: The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln and was established in 1854 to block the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery: Its two founders, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, owned large numbers of slaves, and every party platform before the Civil War defended the institution unequivocally. After the war, it was the Republican Party that rammed through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution over Democratic opposition. Republicans also enacted a series of civil-rights laws that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875,...

Fifty years ago, an American president successfully stood up against the Moslem tide in the Middle East and won a victory. But the anniversary may pass completely unnoticed by most of the media, and the lesson of that event remains unlearned by most Americans. On July 15, 1958, President Eisenhower began what was called "Operation Blue Bat." President Chamoun of Lebanon, a Maronite Christian, had refused to side with Arab Moslem nations against the West. The result was that within Lebanon, supported by Syria, Muslims pushed for the end of the Chamoun administration (and, tacitly, for an end to the...

THIS IS A LONG READ, BUT VERY INFORMATIVE. Let me issue and control a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." (Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Founder of Rothschild Banking Dynasty) Many prominent Americans such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson have argued and fought against the central banking polices used throughout Europe.

This past weekend I watched Ken Burns' PBS documentary "The Civil War", and naturally I was left with far more questions than answers. (With the exception of the fact that I was unbelievably impressed with the commentary of the late Shelby Foote) So I compiled a series of them that are probably too wide in scope for one thread, but I will go ahead and ask them anyway. (Note: I'm going to admit a general ignorance on many of the subjects I present here, so if any of you responding find a "well, no $#@$@# Sherlock" question, I apologize in...

A downtown Laredo street bearing the name for more than a century of a Mexican hero was changed by the Laredo City Council on Monday to remove offensive connotations it may have against Arabs or Muslims.Since moving to Laredo nearly 30 years ago, Kamel M. Shrek has studied the meaning of "Matamoros," which means Moor killer or Moor slayer. The phrase was used as a battle cry by the Spaniards during the battle of Clavijo in 844 AD, according to Shrek's research, meant to encourage killing of Muslims. After becoming a nickname in Spain related to killing Catholic Spain's Arabic...

Poland commemorates her refugees in Iran by Ryszard Antolak 24-Jun-2008 The Polish Postal Service has commemorated the role Isfahan played during World War 2 in caring for Polish orphans. The new stamp, "Isfahan - the City of Polish Children", went on sale earlier this month. It depicts a pupil at School No. 15 near Isfahan (Stanislaw Stojakowski), standing in front of a Persian carpet woven at the city's Carpet School in 1944. In 1942, Isfahan housed thousands of Polish orphans released from the Soviet work camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan. At its peak, twenty one areas of the city were...

Dawn Eden found an archived interview of Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Margaret Sanger from 1957, after she's supposed to have mellowed. Hardly. Here's a little drop of her poison: SANGER: I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world -- that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit. It's a little too long for me to recommend the...

Most American history books -- but not Back to Basics for the Republican Party -- are written by liberal professors, who downplay or ignore Democrat villainy. As a result, few people today know the political element of the New York Draft Riot. Here's the story from the Republican point of view: On this day in 1863, Democrats began a four-day killing spree in New York City -- continued at http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/the-new-york-draft-riot-was-democrats-attacking-republicans.html

Twenty years ago today (March 24, 2005), Army Major Arthur D. "Nick" Nicholson drove into East Germany to survey Soviet military activity. It was a bright Sunday morning, and he was about to become the last American to die in the Cold War. Relatively few people have heard of Nicholson, even though his killing dominated newspaper headlines around the world for several tense days two decades ago. A handful of people won't ever forget him: A small band of former comrades gathers at his Arlington National Cemetery each spring... I wrote about Nicholson's story in National Review last year. Since...

Burr-Hamilton duel A contemporary artistic rendering of the July 11, 1804 duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton by J. Mund. The DuelIn the early morning hours of July 11, 1804, Burr and Hamilton departed by separate boats from Manhattan and rowed across the Hudson River to a spot known as the Heights of Weehawken in New Jersey, a popular dueling ground below the towering cliffs of the Palisades. Hamilton and Burr agreed to take the duel to Weehawken because dueling had been outlawed in New York (The same site was used for 18 known duels between 1700 and 1845.).In...

Public approval of Congress is so low that a few Republican optimists dream of overcoming the structural factors favoring the Democrats, holding steady or even gaining seats. They are dreaming. America has a proud tradition of disdain for Congress. In the run up to the Civil War, the floor of the US House of Representatives became the very first battlefield as northern and southern members would routinely resort to fisticuffs in order to settle arguments or points of personal honor. It was not unusual for Members to come armed with pistols to the floor, ready and willing to offer satisfaction...

Very rarely a well written scholarly book directed to the general reader not only corrects profound misperceptions of historical persons and events but also shows the true origin of a basic part of human social action. Such a book is Defending the Declaration by Gary T. Amos.1 This excellent book belongs in the library of every Christian church, college, school, history scholar and teacher, pastor, attorney, and family especially when home schooling. It should be required collateral reading in American history courses (high school and college) dealing with the origins of America. Last but not least it makes a wonderful...

The importance of Kingmakers for a wide American audience emerges slowly. At first, the book appears to be a quaint reminiscence of eccentric and often familiar British colonials of the early 20th century, strutting across Middle Eastern deserts in pith helmets, instructing the benighted native tribesmen about the fundamentals of governing. But as this beautifully written and researched book proceeds, it becomes abundantly clear that these skilled English soldier-diplomats are the progenitors of (and in some cases, role models for) the current crop of American diplomats and soldiers on the same turf. The issues that this country is now debating...

"I believe we are witnessing the beginning of a new race of men" Anonymous British Officer after the Battle of Saratoga, 1777 This comment, made by a soldier now forgotten by history, was more prophetic and more significant than he probably realized at the time Here is the link to the rest Or click The Bulletin link: http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19842763&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

With the exception of a few goofy teetotalers, in the average Old West town you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a serious tippler (and he’d probably shoot you soon after). The drinkers you’re about to cross paths with—con-men, gunslingers, gamblers, madams, lawdogs and soiled doves—are among the very best.  THE GOOD…  Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876)Law man, gunfighter, Union Army spy, military scout, dime-novel hero and dangerous poker player, James Butler Hickok was born in Troy Grove, Illinois. His youth was characterized by a love of guns, a cheerful fondness for “medicinal� whiskey, and a near-total disregard for...

This is very reminiscent of the election of 1896, when William McKinley ran against William Jennings Bryan. McKinley too was a genuine war hero (distinguished service in the Civil War) who then entered politics. He served several terms in the House and became chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. In 1891 he was elected governor of Ohio. His opponent's political résumé was a lot thinner, with only two back-bencher terms in the House. But at the Democratic convention of 1896, Bryan electrified the crowd with his "Cross of Gold" speech. It instantly became an American classic and propelled him...

One signed all three bulwarks of the Republic. The other was second only to James Madison as the architect of the Constitution. Robert Morris and James Wilson were two of the most important, yet least publicized, of the Founding Fathers. Why has Philadelphia not commemorated some of its most important citizens? Wilson was according to American Heritage magazine, one of the most underrated Americans in history. Historian Gary Wills wrote, "A signer of the Declaration, a principal drafter of the Federal Constitution, the principal ratifier, and the profoundest theorist of it, Wilson is the least known of the Founding Fathers."...

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin. In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of...

Members of the LDS Church often make a big issue of the fact that their ancestors faced terrible persecutions during the early years of the LDS movement. To most people, Missourian sites like Independence, Liberty, Far West, and Caldwell County mean very little. Yet to the faithful Latter-day Saint, these places carry a great amount of significance. It is true that the Mormons were driven from several states before finally arriving in what is known today as the state of Utah, and this violence can never be condoned. However, with all of the talk of the persecution early Mormons faced,...

RPG game about Warsaw Risisng 05.07.2008 It was published by Bully Pulpit Games, in the US and designed by Jason Morningstar. It proved a huge success in America, though has not found its way to Poland yet. ‘Grey Ranks is a game for three to five players’, write the publishers, ‘that puts you in the shoes of child soldiers during the Warsaw Uprising. The game is designed to be played over three sessions and includes a scene structure, with each scene corresponding to a specific date in 1944. As the game progresses, success becomes increasingly difficult and the player is...

The lyric from the old pop song that proclaimed "Don't Know Much About History," is a label that could well be applied to many Americans. But despite the fact that surveys occasionally tell us that many college seniors place the Battle of Gettysburg as happening sometime in the middle of World War II, the study of history isn't merely for those hobbyists who like to pose as Civil War or Revolutionary era soldiers. Even as we debate the largely unpopular wars being fought with Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan, the focus of another crucial debate currently raging on the bookshelves...

Gather around class. On July 4, 2008, the United States of America will celebrate its 232nd birthday. Happy Birthday, you “whippersnapper!” The word “whippersnapper” originated about 100-years, before the freedom-loving colonists told King George to go jump in the lake. To be historically accurate, this dynast’s tea is what the rebels threw into Boston Harbor. Whippersnapper originally referred to a young person, usually male, who was unimportant and insignificant – but presumptuous. That epithet certainly applied to our early thirteen colonies. They were unimportant and insignificant, relative to the mighty British Empire, but they were also presumptuous in attempting to...

Last month, workmen jacked up a 206-year-old yellow clapboard house, levered it onto a set of remote-controlled dollies, and trundled it two blocks to a new site in St. Nicholas Park, overlooking East Harlem in New York City. The Grange, as it is called, was the home of Alexander Hamilton, best known as co-author of the Federalist papers and America's first secretary of the Treasury. But this founding father also had an extraordinary role in the infant nation's attempt to come to grips with the curse of slavery. Born in the West Indies, Hamilton was one of the most ardent...

Hartford (WTNH) _ A long forgotten flag was discovered at the Connecticut Historical Society and it dates back to the days of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Susan Schoelwer from the Connecticut Historical Society says a handwritten note accompanied the flag inside a simple black box. "You know we have a lot of stuff with a lot of little notes on them. Some of them are true and some of them are not," Susan said. In this case the note claims that the tattered American flag was present at a traumatic event in American history and the hand of a great...

[Click through to article to view interview with author James Piereson.] The central thesis of James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution was that JFK's assassination was the key moment that caused a large portion of once sensible liberals to begin to tilt to the far, far left, and for lack of better word, become Unhinged. Like this calm, rational fan of the New Frontier! In the (admittedly totally tasteless) formulation of a friend of mine, the best thing that ever happened to civil rights in this country was the bullet through JFK's head. Along the way, as I wrote...

On July 3rd I went to the local Walgreen's. While standing in the shade out front I was passed by an elderly gentleman on his way inside. I thought I saw the words "Bomb Group" accross the pocket of his polo shirt. So when he came out I stopped him. The shirt said "440th Bomb Group". "World War II?" I asked. "Yes!" He smiled. I shook his hand, adding sadly "the last one we won". "The last one we tried to win." "Amen, Brother." As I watched him go out of sight my mind was on the 56,000 who never...

The Americans Who Risked Everything My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter. My dad was renowned for his oratory skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America's Founders, as well as a deep appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here: "Our Lives, Our...

FLASHBACK: Wesley Clark, Then and Now. Plus, dodging missiles. [videos]

A Vietnam vet friend of mine argues that maintaining a democracy requires three things: a passion for freedom, tolerance for diversity and intolerance for threats. A letter from a reader, responding to a column on Iraq's struggling democracy, suggested I write about the United States' own tortuous path -- sketching a nation that began with limited voting rights and confronted powerful factions, ethnic animosities, urban riot, rural rebellion and destructive civil war. The reader thought America's saga might help the public "understand that this democracy thing is hard." Hard indeed. Mull my friend's threefold guidance, and you'll find tricky paradox...

Vatican plea to uncover Virgin Mary and show her breast-feeding baby Jesus By Simon Caldwell Last updated at 11:09 PM on 23rd June 2008 [...] ...artists later depicted the nursing Mary fully clothed because the Protestant reformers were generally critical of "the carnality and unbecoming nature of many sacred images". But Miss Scaraffia argued that later depictions had also diminished the Madonna’ s human side "that touches the hearts and faith of the devout". Miss Scaraffia said that when the early Christian artists represented the Virgin breast-feeding they had sought to reveal the reality of God's incarnation. [...] Images of...

Arab’s play offense while Israelis play defense. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of propaganda. ...negotiations. Can anyone tell me what the Israelis are demanding. I’m waiting. On the other hand,the Arabs are demanding the holy city in Jerusalem, the greenline... “right of return”.. Israel always struggling to meet their demands in part, hoping it will suffice.. They have a sense of entitlement while the Israelis have a sense of indebtedness..no way to win a ball game.. The Arabs always rejected the State of Israel & made a conscious decision to convince the world... So they began...

What follows is Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence from his Autobiography. A good portion of the text was deleted or changed by the Congressional delegates; these deletions are indicated by brackets (the last two paragraphs, Jefferson's original and Congress's version are presented side by side in Jefferson's text and here); changes made by Congress are also in brackets but are clearly marked. It was very important to Jefferson that he preserve his original document alongside the version eventually signed. Why? What are the significant differences? What do you make of these deletions? In the second paragraph,...