Free Republic

As President Obama and Congressional Democrats attempt to straddle election-year fences in the wake of massive “tea party” rebellion against the health-care takeover and numerous other liberal assaults on individual rights, they are finding themselves targeted by protestors from an unusual quarter: their own left-wing base. At the “America’s Future Now” conference being held in Washington, D.C. as of this writing, for instance, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca, 8th District), found herself on the receiving end, for a change, of calls for “change”: "Crowds repeatedly interrupted and heckled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Tuesday [June 8th] at America’s Future Now conference in what...

The Cloward-Piven strategy, the bible for liberal progressives, teaches that to undermine the system one need only do one thing: Overwhelm the system. The radicals who occupy the White House, students of Alinsky, are all-too-familiar with the methods that will bring this country to its knees and allow for a remake or "transformation" to an ideal society that will finally be acceptable to their brethren. Using each and every "crisis" to add another control disguised as government benevolence, the Obama administration is packing regulation upon regulation on the American people. The strong foundation of our nation has, over the years,...

Google has once again failed to commemorate Memorial Day with a special logo. Google has ignored this special day every year since 1999, when it first began using special logos on its main page. The only reminder of this important day on Google’s home page is a tiny graphic of a yellow ribbon superimposed on a small American flag. Apparently, the sacrifices made by millions of American soldiers through the ages in defense of freedom and preservation of our liberties and the lives of hundreds of millions of other people around the world is not worthy of recognition.

In order to distract from the grave fiscal crisis caused by Greece’s cradle-to-grave socialism, Greek socialist prime minister George Papandreou is threatening to sue American banks. Like his father before him who was also prime minister, Papandreou is the leader of the political party PASOK, which is the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. He is also president of the Socialist International. (The Socialist International’s affiliate in the U.S. is a group called Democratic Socialists of America, which in turn in closely tied to the Congressional Progressive Caucus). “Greece will look into the past and see how things went,” Papandreou said. “There are...

Jonathan Alter’s upcoming book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, reportedly quotes Obama verbally attacking Americans who participate in the Tea Party movement. The President supposedly said that Republican opposition to his Recovery Act, “helped create the (expletive deleted) and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party where it now controls the agenda for Republicans.” [...] It is un-presidential for Obama to attack Americans who are exercising their 1st Amendment rights to protest against big government. The President owes Tea Party members and the American people an apology.

Having no substance of its own, the left is inherently parasitic; like a cancer cell or virus, it survives by posing as a healthy member of the same host it then attacks and ultimately destroys. This pattern of "mimic-attack-conquer" has given us liberty-hating "liberals," leftist mainline churches that publicly embrace what their own teachings explicitly prohibit, and educators whose goal is to ensure that all children get left behind. This last item is exemplified by the distressing transformation of the backbone of the Western Canon, the liberal arts, into something decidedly "illiberal." Under the direction of leftist educators, the very...

One of the things I like so much about writing for American Thinker is the comments page. Readers offer so much: tips for books to read, quotes to ponder, spiritual inspiration. And then there are times when the comments absolutely floor me. I was shocked that readers were shocked about my previously viewing Marxism as sublime. I was astonished that readers were astonished about my young client's freak out about styrofoam. I realized that liberals really do live on another planet. Sometimes I feel like I'm having a Close Encounter of the Political Kind. Conservatives can mistakenly assume that liberals...

Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration. But there are two other facts that are far more troubling: The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers. It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender...

The Tax Day tea parties were a start. Taxes are too high, we all agree. You can see how high at usgovernmentrevenue.com. But taxes aren't the problem. Nor indeed is government spending the problem, although you can take a look at the century of steadily increasing government spending at usgovernmentspending.com. Worried about debt? Here. Deficits? Click here. Taxes and spending and debts and deficits are just symptoms of the problem. The real problem is the philosophy and culture of our governing class. We know that the administrative state is necessarily oppressive. Bureaucracy is designed to make people conform to the...

In recent weeks while addressing Tea Party rallies here on the left coast, I ask the assembled patriots what appears to be an odd question: "Would all those from the former Soviet Union please raise your hands?" A notable number of hands are always raised -- the San Francisco Bay Area is home to a diverse population. I then ask another curious question: "What does April 22 signify to you?" Without exception, someone will shout with great displeasure, "Lenin's birth date!" The crowd clearly sees that I'm on to something. I next ask the former Soviets, "And as a young...

America’s Religious Left, having invested decades in dialogue with and advocating accommodation of the Soviet Bloc, was flummoxed and uncelebratory about the momentous collapse of East European Communism in 1989-1990. The United Methodist Council of Bishops, representing 9 million church members in the U.S. were actually in session when the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. They reacted by blandly commending the East Germans for their “openness and growing self- confidence” and by urging a “new trust and compassion throughout the world.” They also warned against the imposition of Eastern or Western value systems, as though the two were morally...

What I don’t like is the way rich liberals, who have made their money through the operations of the capitalist system and who would be miserable bureaucratic cogs in a socialist system, are nevertheless socialists. I suspect that a large part of their motivation is a style of asceticism which has been fashionable among the rich since the time of the Pharisees. Another motivation for the rich liberals to dislike the capitalist system is that they have already gotten theirs and they don’t want to be challenged by other people coming along and getting theirs. I don’t like the way...

I found a reply on my ChicagoNow blog, a site operated by the Chicago Tribune, that is so emblematic of the essential anti-Americanness of the left in our country that I thought I'd explore it in a full post instead of just replying to it on the original page on which it appeared. The comment was oozed out by some extremist named Tom Degan, a blogger whom I'd never heard of before. Apparently he has his own blog on the Google-owned Blogspot system. (No link love for Tommy, look for his blog yourself) He is himself utterly inconsequential, of course,...

In an blockbuster interview airing this weekend on my nationally syndicated radio show, a prominent black conservative blew the lid off the racism of the Left. Dr. Christopher Metzler, Associate Dean of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University, told me of the racist attacks he endured after going public with his opposition to the Democrats’ health care bill and President Barack Obama’s overall agenda. After an appearance a few weeks ago on “The O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel, Metzler began to receive despicable, racist voicemail messages. One caller swears at him profanely and tells him to get his “black...

"What is it then that drives some intellectuals in free countries to hate their native land and wish for its annihilation?" - Eric Hoffer I left the campus library at the University of Colorado, Boulder some time after noon. Outside in the library courtyard, I heard something strange and unsettling drifting down from the student union complex just up the hill. It was the raucous roaring of a crowd -- similar to the Saturday football games -- but with an eerie flavor of something dark and unhinged. I turned toward the noise and began walking. I was running late on...

In the 1970s, there was an evocative public service advertisement on television. It showed an old and grizzled Native American Chief with a tear rolling down his cheek as he surveyed the pollution scaring the landscape of the once-pristine land. As the House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform, many of us who were blessed to immigrate to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity (and were welcomed with open arms) found ourselves looking across the panorama of our adopted land with a tear rolling down our cheek. Many of us who came to the United States did...

The way Bill Maher sees it, resistance to ObamaCare is all God’s fault. Why? Because so many people believe in this “schmuck” who lives in the clouds…and this belief, in turn, intensifies opposition to ObamaCare. This leftist social critic, anti-Christian crusader, and HBO comedy show host warned God at the end of last week to back off, to allow smart people like himself and Barack Obama and the New York Times editorial board to push the God-fearing “ignoramuses” aside this week and take control of the nation’s health care.

One of President Obama's great political gifts is his moderate demeanor -- cool, reasoned, self-contained. It masks the frank immoderation of everything about his final push on health-care reform. His liberal admirers call him a centrist. He hasn't tried to pass a single-payer system, has he? But Obama is in Washington, not Ottawa. Single-payer couldn't pos sibly pass. Nor could the public option, which he supported until it reached its absolute expiration date. These aren't principled acts of centrism; they're unexceptional adjustments to reality. Obama supports the leftmost plausible bill. It's as expansive and expensive as possible without getting so...

In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West. [...] Socialism has bankrupted and failed every society, while capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. There is no perfect society. There are no perfect people. Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism. Change to...

In the ever-expanding state that the left creates, the vast majority of individuals lose significance in that they are simply less needed as the state takes over many of their roles. Fifty years ago, the men of the local Rotary Club had prestige and societal significance. So did fathers. So did clergy. With the ascendance of the left and the expansion of their state, much of their power and societal significance has eroded. Now, as the state expands further into health care, the same will happen to doctors as power and prestige are transferred from them to the heads of...