Free Republic

I sat down and watched President Obama's speech today on Obamacare and wondered if he was going to lash out at Republicans for the (non) government shutdown. As I fought the rising bile and oncoming nausea I always experience hearing our liar-in-chief, I was not disappointed. Obama's speech is a textbook example torn from the liberal progressive handbook. He started off with a painful "is this on?" bit about the microphone, just showing how much of an amateur he is on the big stage. He then immediately launched into attacking the Republicans for the government shutdown (I like the term...

'Right Kinds of Behavior' Needed for 'Clean Energy Future,' Says Interior Secretary August 14, 2013 - 11:13 AM By Susan Jones (CNSNews.com) - The "new energy future" will require the federal government to encourage "the right kinds of behavior," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told a clean energy summit in Nevada on Tuesday. "When you are getting into a new energy future, you really benefit from having the support of states -- and the federal government encouraging the right kinds of behavior and encouraging those incentives (for solar panel installation), she said. Jewell mentioned the "right" kind of behavior twice in...

H.L. Mencken had Roosevelt nailed when he wrote the following: He didn't believe in democracy; he believed simply in government. In 'The "New Freedom" and the Courts', Theodore Roosevelt said the following: The "New Freedom" is nothing whatever but the right of the strong to prey on the weak, of the big men to crush down the little men, and to shield their iniquity beneath the cry that they are exercising freedom. The "New Freedom" when practically applied turns out to be that old kind of dreadful freedom which leaves the unscrupulous and powerful free to make slaves of the...

The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. The roots of his pathology lie in that oldest and most destructive of all human vices, the desire for the power to rule over other men. As...

"Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter." -- Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -- Ayn Rand One of the most disturbing things about...

(CNSNews.com) - In the message he issued along with his budget proposal on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama said he wants to see 4-year-old children in the United States enrolled in public schools.

In "An introduction to political economy", Richard T. Ely writes the following: (page 92) Public and Private Responsibilities.- It is seen in general that there is no limit to the right of the State, the sovereign power, save its ability to do good. Duty, function, is co-extensive with power. The State is a moral person. It may be further said in general that the fundamental principle, the basis of the economic life of modern nations, is individual responsibility. It is designed that each grown person should feel that the welfare of himself and of his family, if he has one,...

Suppose that you are a Soviet agent in the 1950s. Your cover is that of an insurance salesman. Of your two "jobs", the Soviet agent part is more important, but you need to be a good insurance salesman to maintain your cover. Being a good insurance salesman doesn't clash with being a good Communist, because your job selling life insurance allows you to pursue your real job. And you cannot conflate the two jobs. You can't sell insurance to your KGB bosses or pitch Communism to your insurance prospects. If you do that, then worlds will collide. But if Communism...

Have you ever noticed how modern progressives assault any kinds of profits to the death? No matter how big or how small. Profits mean "taking advantage of" someone. Profits mean greed. There's an answer to this. For some progressives, the answer is rooted in marxism, as many who claim to be progressives really are not. But true progressive ideology also gives us the answer. Herbert Croly is a great place to start, as he was not a marxist from what I can tell, but he clearly supported an ever expanding huge government with commissions and bureaucratic despots. In "Progressive Democracy",...

For those of you who didn't catch the tail end of Mark Levin's show Tuesday night, here's what he discussed in the last 5 minutes.(mp3) At the Constitutional Convention, July 17th, 1787, delegate Gunning Bedford of Delaware made the following proposal: Mr. BEDFORD moved that the 2d. member of Resolution 6. be so altered as to read "and moreover to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union, and also in those to which the States are separately incompetent," or in which the harmony of the U. States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual Legislation."...

This is...about a coordinated effort by about 36 different interest groups with reported revenues of no less than $1.69 billion, pledging millions of dollars to work together to attack conservative supporters and organizations, to intervene directly in Democratic politics, to push for filibuster reform to better enable a push through their agenda without any input from the opposition, and expanding "voting rights" and fighting voter registration laws to further grease the skids for their legislative agenda. 1. Who belongs: Here are a few of them: ...the AFL-CIO, the Center for American Progress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common...

"The tone and tendency of Liberalism cannot be long concealed. It is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of Reform, and to make war on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the pretext of Progress." - Benjamin Disraeli I was reminded recently of the 1872 "Demands of Liberalism", which in turn reminded me of what I had seen in Disraeli's writings. You wouldn't believe the stuff I read sometimes. Heck, I don't believe it often times. Anyways, here are those demands: "THE DEMANDS OF LIBERALISM "1. We demand that churches and...

"They fear that the development and building of People's (community) Organizations is the building of a vast power group which may fall prey to a fascistic demagogue who will seize leadership and control and turn an organization into a Frankenstein's monster against democracy." - Saul Alinsky responding to his critics, Reveille for Radicals; p. 199 When Saul Alinsky began building his community-organization movement in 1930s Chicago, observers were watching Alinsky with one eye, while with the other eye observing the building of communist and fascist movements in Europe. It wasn't hard then to see in Alinsky's programs at home, elements...

Suburbanites of Ohio, listen up. As swing voters in the ultimate swing state, you will have an outsized impact on this election. President Obama has pledged to govern in the interests of middle-class voters like you. With so much resting on your shoulders, that is a promise you should scrutinize with care. What exactly are Obama’s plans for Ohio’s suburban communities? The answer may shock you. President Obama aims to help Ohio’s Democrats bail out your state’s struggling cities by forcibly transferring suburban tax money to urban treasuries. It’s a bold plan to redistribute the wealth of Ohio’s suburbs. It...

Will Rogers, a famous Democrat, used to say “All I know is what I read in the papers.” What he meant was he made his decisions about the meaning of current events based on what he read and heard in his everyday life. This week we are seeing the Democratic National Convention. They are telling us what they stand for and what they plan for our future. I have read the Communists’ plan for destroying America and my sense of what has gone on over the past fifty years tells me the Democrats have been working to implement it. See...

Who needs God when you have Chicago Jesus?Via The Blaze: The Democratic Party may be getting a fair amount of attention this week — and not only because the political movement is hosting its national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Another point of focus has already been the contents — or the lack thereof — present in the 2012 Democratic Party Platform.Earlier today, we told you that the document fails to mention Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a proclamation that was previously touted by the party. And now, in an even more shocking revelation, CBN News is reporting that...

The FRC shooting is the latest chapter in the blood-drenched history of the left — from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street. This is the way the left does business — with guillotines, gulags and gas chambers, with bombs, bullets, purges, planned famines and demonizing opponents as a prelude to their slaughter. In 2009, James Pouillon was shot to death while holding a pro-life sign by a supporter of choice. The same year, black Tea Party activist Kenneth Glandney was beaten so badly by SEIU thugs that he had to be hospitalized. In 2010, heavily armed eco-terrorist James J....

In "Progress and Poverty" (1879) on page 295, Henry George wrote the following: We have traced the unequal distribution of wealth which is the curse and menace of modern civilization to the institution of private property in land. We have seen that so long as this institution exists no increase in productive power can permanently benefit the masses; but, on the contrary, must tend still further to depress their condition. We have examined all the remedies, short of the abolition of private property in land, which are currently relied on or proposed for the relief of poverty and the better...

Yesterday, the Senate narrowly voted (51-48) to raise taxes on 1.2 million small businesses, which will likely kill more than 700,000 jobs at a time when nearly 13 million Americans are out of work. Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) joined all Republicans in bipartisan opposition to the tax hike. This is President Obama’s economic plan. This is what he asked Congress to do. And he recently told a fundraising crowd that his economic plan has been working. “Just like we’ve tried [Republicans'] plan, we tried our plan—and it worked,” he said. But Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner,...

In Constitutional Government(1908), Woodrow Wilson wrote the following:(pages 169-170) When the Constitution was framed there were no railways, there was no telegraph, there was no telephone. The Supreme Court has read the power of Congress to establish post-offices and post-roads and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states to mean that it has jurisdiction over practically ever matter connected with intercourse between the states. Railways are highways; telegraph and telephone lines are new forms of the post. The Constitution was not meant to hold the government back to the time of horses and wagons, the time...