Free Republic

Before Haiti became the world's first black republic, it was a slave nation. On the island, there were quarantines, where a new slave was broken down, beaten physically, informed of his inferiority and told to be thankful to his captors — because it was the work that the slave would do for his masters that would lead to forgiveness and acceptance into heaven. Now, more than 200 years after the slaves revolted, a former Colorado couple wants to commemorate the quarantine, which they believe is the source of the Western world's violence, racism and greed. "Our culture, our society did...

The old assumptions about transatlantic relations are being junked – by two men with big hopes of leading Britain and France. Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to win the French presidency, recently criticised his country’s “arrogance” in its dealings with Washington, earning a rebuke from Jacques Chirac, the present incumbent. And across the channel David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative opposition who currently leads in UK opinion polls, criticised Britain’s “slavish” stance towards the Bush administration – and upset US officials. Yet the two men’s speeches, delivered a day apart last month, were hardly at odds. Indeed, certain passages were...