Free Republic

With the political winds now blowing favorably for liberals, or “progressives” as they have more recently labeled themselves, another label (conservative) seems to have gained a negative connotation among some. Actually, there’s really nothing negative about conservatism, at least compared to all other alternatives. First, we should think about what conservatism actually is. The first definition in Webster’s Online Dictionary, by Wordnet, defines conservatism as “A political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes.” The second definition, by Webster, defines the term as “The disposition and tendency to preserve what is established;...

During my transcription process of the book Fabian Freeway, I would sometimes go through the footnotes and see what I could verify, when one thing in particular caught my eye. (Chapter 17) The fact that an old-line southern Democrat had been induced to sponsor the basic legislation so ardently desired by all spokesmen of gradual Socialism was an early and notable example of success for the Fabian technique known as permeation. This concept is actually used extensively throughout the book, but for whatever reason, it caught my eye in the current context. The Fabians turned "Permeation" into a policy because...

An academic lecture by Professsor Thomas West from Hillsdale College. An excellent lecture from their Consitution 201 series plus links to other Hillsdale College lectures. An educational series that I wish would be viewed in our private high schools. Excellent material for home schoolers. Pass it on.

President Obama’s first-term Supreme Court appointments make it seem unlikely to conservatives that the president will nominate judges over the next four years known for their judicial restraint. In fact, for progressives, judicial restraint takes on an entirely different description. At least, that’s the impression given by Ian Millhiser at a recent Center for American Progress event, in which he said that the “frivolous” lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, convinced him against judicial activism. “And one thing I will say that that taught me is that judicial restraint is really important and that I think...

The Progressives won on Tuesday. I don't mean the people who voted Democrat who call themselves "progressive." Though they won, too. I mean the Progressives who've been waging a century-long effort to transform our American-style government into a European-style state. The words "government" and "state" are often used interchangeably, but they are really different things. According to the founders' vision, the people are sovereign and the government belongs to us. Under the European notion of the state, the people are creatures of the state, significant only as parts of the whole. This European version of the state can be nice....

<> Though many of the state margins were narrow President Obama ran the table winning every swing or battleground state with the possible exception of Florida where votes are still being counted as of 5:30 this morning. President Obama also won the popular vote by 2 million votes. The President won 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney. We knew about 11 pm that the President had won when Ohio was called for him. Democrats also held the Senate. Elizabeth Warren won with a good margin in Massachusetts. Claire McKaskill won in Missouri beating Akin-he of the legitimate rape...

In Madison, people dining at food carts don't have to eat their veggies, but in the future, they could get the choice. The city's Vending Oversight Committee, as part of its annual review of food carts, on Wednesday will discuss whether carts must offer vegetarian menu items.

.... Modern American liberalism has always had a streak of political messianism, a Great Man view of the presidency, and impatience with a government slowed by the checks and balances created by the Founders. The history of modern liberalism begins with Woodrow Wilson, the father of the movement to create a “living Constitution” in place of the written one. He sought to end what he called “blind worship” of the Constitution, taking pride in the fact that: We are the first Americans to hear our own countrymen ask whether the Constitution is still adapted to serve the purposes for which...

There was a time when the far left wing of the Democratic Party in San Francisco stood for something. Sure, they could be shrill, exasperating and self-righteous, but they took a stand. [snip] Because right now it looks as if their only commitment is to whatever is politically expedient. Ross Mirkarimi and District Five supervisor candidate Julian Davis have some serious defects. Each has been accused of mistreating women. But, hey, progressives say, they're our bad guys.

Progressive opinions on Barack Obama’s first term are as conflicted as his record. These differences are a sign of a diverse and spirited left, and we welcome continued debate in our pages about the president’s record and policies. But that discussion should not obscure what is at stake in this election. A victory for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in November would validate the reactionary extremists who have captured the Republican Party. It would represent the triumph of social Darwinism, the religious right, corporate power and the big money donors who thrive in a new Gilded Age of inequality. It...

..................Each party is pulled into this debate by what it sees as the deeply misguided views of the other. Democrats listen to Republicans and hear a simpleminded and selfish radical individualism​—​or, as President Obama has put it, “nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” They hear people who think that being successful and rich means you’re smarter than everyone else or work harder than everyone else, and who therefore have no regard for those in our society who are in no position to start a business or get a loan. They hear people who have benefited from the privileges of being...

HERE IS AN EYE-OPENING CHANGE --- Interesting website change we see at the NEW U.S. JUSTICE DEPT. http://www.justice.gov/ Little by little, the subtle changes come until one day we will wake up and be in the United Socialist States of America. The election is just around the corner, BECOME engaged as if our nation depended on it... because it does!!!!! Department of Justice ditches red, white, and blue stars and stripes. It seems the U.S. Department of Justice has changed its web site. Gone are the colorful red, white, and blue U.S. Flag decorations on the page! Replaced by...

Full title: Ground Reports from the “Depression that Shall Not Be Named” — things we notice that the corrupt media won’t report that show this is indeed a Depression On my desk, just under the computer monitor, I have a little box full of slips of scrap paper. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid because the nuns who taught me in Catholic School refused to ever waste paper. Anything that comes into my home that’s blank on one side and has outlived its usefulness is drawn and quartered and spends some time as scrap paper in that...

Try to define progressivism . In fact, ask progressives to try to define progressivism . All we really know is that they’re, well, progressing. They and their ideas and their politics are always changing, evolving. This means that what they believe and hold fast and dear today may not be what they believe and hold fast and dear tomorrow, or decades or a century from now. For instance, when progressive heroine Margaret Sanger started her American Birth Control League a century ago, she was seeking birth control for, among other purposes, what she and fellow progressives termed “race improvement.” She...

The transformation of Chick Fil A from a fast food place that most liberals had never even heard of into the "Enemy of the People" is a reminder of the speed at which progressivism travels forward and backward in time. A few months ago the CEO of Chick Fil A would have done nothing worse than echo a consensus so mainstream that it was adopted as a campaign position by the leftiest Democrat to sit in the White House. A few months later that same position is so outrageous that it leads to mass boycotts, threats of violence and mayors...

...The entire Democratic Party, from the top down, now looks like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. The hatred of America is open. The desire to undo American constitutionalism is explicit. And this exposure will only accelerate in the coming months and years, as the left realizes ever more acutely that its days as an accepted political faction are numbered, and it is forced to take increasingly drastic and sudden measures to achieve its brutal aims before the clock runs out....It has become patently clear that the present Republican Party establishment is not up for this fight. Constitutional conservatives must do...

It's long been known that Theodore Roosevelt was influenced by the book "The Promise of American Life", as well as Croly's other writings as he himself makes clear in the essay "Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy. What is questioned is to what degree, how it happened, and if the slogan "New Nationalism" itself is a direct lift. On page 169 is where Croly uses the phrase. In the New York Independent, the following is written: (Page 957, this was originally published in 1912) The New Democracy resembles in some points Croly's "Promise of American Life," from which Colonel Roosevelt got...

HYDE PARK, N. Y., May 31 (U.R) - President Roosevelt today began implementing his proclamation of an unlimited national emergency today by naming Secretary of Interior Harold. L. Ickes virtual dictator of the $10,000,000,000 American oil industry. Designating Ickes as petroleum coordinator for national defense, Mr. Roosevelt ordered him to formulate a program to insure "that the supply of petroleum and its products will be accommodated to the needs of the nation and the national defense program." The move followed Mr. Roosvelt's warnbig in a letter to Speak­er Sam Rayborn that oil rationing in the east is a "distinct possilbility"...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said Wednesday she takes full responsibility for incorrectly claiming for eight months that 90 percent of the city's homicides and shootings took place on 100 blocks.Quan is continuing to stand by her crime plan. The city's news release said that although the statistic was incorrect, "the premise of the public safety strategy is sound and has merit."

French President François Hollande's popularity has fallen by two percentage points to 59 percent, a poll published on the Journal du Dimanche's website showed on Saturday. The survey by pollster Ipsos was conducted between June 14 and June 22, a few days before and after the second round on June 17 of France's parliamentary election, which gave a large victory to Hollande's Socialist Party. Hollande's prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault had an approval rating of 65 percent, unchanged on the previous. …