Free Republic

The government does a lot that is absurd, foolish, and wrong, but the last thing we should cut is the state’s role in protecting our lives and property. The government does a lot that is absurd, foolish, and wrong, but the last thing we should cut is the state’s role in protecting our lives and property.

Retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson, a Democratic candidate in Texas's 24th Congressional District near Dallas, came out in favor of the looting and arson that has accompanied many of the George Floyd protests around the country. "In my mind, the 'pursuit of happiness' clause in our Constitution, if properly interpreted, allows for looting and arson as a form of political expression," she argued. "The police upped the ante by putting snipers on the roofs during the peaceful protests," Olson said. "The looting and arson were natural responses to that provocation. If people loot, so what? Burn it to the...

While the Pelosi Left mulls endless impeachment orgies of President Trump, I’ve wondered what holds a fractured American society together. As opposed to monarchies and totalitarian regimes, republican government demands a certain threshold of shared interests, traditions, religion, and outlook. Without this commonality, society breaks down into hostile opposing tribes incapable of self-government. As such, only a strong central authority can keep them in check. Divide and conquer. This is where the Pelosi Left would take America. When I started this squib I was ready to describe the role of Christianity as society’s particular and most important adhesive, that which...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A California judge has ruled in favor of a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The judge denied a motion for a temporary restraining order filed on Wednesday against Cathy Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California. According to a press release sent by The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, the order would have compelled "Miller to create wedding cakes for LGBT persons, even though doing so would violate her sincerely held religious beliefs."

RENO, Nev. (CBS Las Vegas/AP) — A Nevada rancher said Monday he’s trying to determine if federal agents damaged his cattle when the animals were rounded up then released in a showdown with angry protesters over a decades-long dispute about rangeland rights. U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze said the agency backed off to avoid a potentially violent situation over the weekend. However, he vowed to go to court to collect more than $1 million in back grazing fees he says Cliven Bundy owes for trespassing on federal lands since the 1990s. Bundy, whose family has operated a...

Critics charge that Texas’s growth depends on the oil and gas industries and is weighted toward low-wage jobs. But in fact, Texas’s low-tax, light-regulation policies have produced a highly diversified economy that from 2002 to 2011 created nearly one-third of the nation’s highest-paying jobs. In those years, its number of upper- and middle-income jobs grew 24 percent.Where are Americans moving, and why? Timothy Noah, writing in the Washington Monthly, professes to be puzzled. He points out that people have been moving out of states with high per capita incomes -- Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland -- to states with lower...

..........Helping the poor and disenfranchised get an ID is much broader than simply voting; it is giving them the documentation necessary to both navigate and participate in 21st-century society. Currently, a valid ID is needed to cash a check, apply for working papers, apply for a marriage license, apply for a mortgage, fly on a plane, get a credit card, buy a car, rent a car, rent an apartment, rent a post office box, buy alcohol, cigarettes, a gun, take out student loans, take out home equity loans, leave the country, get back into the country, get car insurance, get...

.....Forced "sharing" is coercion plain and simple. Government-enforced "sharing" is coercion at the point of a gun: "your prosperity or your life." Go back over the list of implications of "shared prosperity" that I offered a few paragraphs back. This time, each time you see the word "sharing," try substituting "relinquishing at the point of a gun." Now you can see exactly what Obama's "new vision" for America really means. It means that you will no longer own yourself. You will no longer have first claim -- or any meaningful claim, for that matter -- on your goods, your time,...

CNS News quotes Democratic Congressman from Georgia, John Lewis... "Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness," said Lewis. "You go to the 14th Amendment--it's equal protection under the law and we have not repealed the 14th Amendment. People have a right to have health care. It's not a privilege but a right."More here Maybe he's right, if the pursuit of happiness is the burden we place on whether or not something should be a right then there are a few other things we should mandate as rights under...

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

On a May night in 2005, Debra Bolton, a lawyer and single mom from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, was leaving the Café Milano in Georgetown after socializing with some friends. She had driven her SUV only a few hundred yards before she was pulled over by D.C. police for driving with the headlights off. She told the officer the parking attendant at Café Milano probably had turned off her vehicle's automatic light feature. Not mollified, the officer asked Bolton to step out of the car, walk in a straight line, recite the alphabet, stand on one foot, and...

With Independence Day fast approaching, I was reflecting upon a Forbes magazine column, in which many of us celebrities and other notables were asked to answer the question, "What is the American Dream?" How would you answer the question? How some others answered Tom Brokaw replied, "To me, the American Dream is the freedom to choose to live how and where you want, to determine how you'll be governed and to provide your children with even more choices than you had." Kurt Russell believes, "…the American Dream has changed – now I believe it's a wish for freedom at no...

For much of my life, I, like most people, regarded the pursuit of happiness as largely a selfish pursuit. One of the great revelations of middle age has been that happiness, far from being only a selfish pursuit, is a moral demand. When we think of character traits we rightly think of honesty, integrity, moral courage, and acts of altruism. Few people include happiness in any list of character traits or moral achievements. But happiness is both. Happiness -- or at least acting happy, or at the very least not inflicting one's unhappiness on others -- is no less important...

If the pursuit of happiness was once an ideal in American life, the entitlement to happiness may now have replaced it. Since the late 1980s, when psychotropic drugs first came on the market, grateful Americans have been lining up at the counter. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin and a host of other antidepressants have been embraced as practical solutions to everyday unhappiness. More than 15% of Americans now use one of the above. Needless to say, they are not all clinically depressed. Whereas Sigmund Freud once described the goal of psychotherapy as "transforming hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness," many doctors now...

Mexico votes to decriminalize drug possession 04:02 PM CDT on Saturday, April 29, 2006 Associated Press MEXICO CITY – Mexicans would be allowed to possess small amounts of cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use under a bill approved by lawmakers that some worry could prove to be a lure to young Americans. ... However the bill stiffens penalties for trafficking and possession of drugs – even small quantities – by government employees or near schools, and maintains criminal penalties for drug sales. ... Sen. Miguel Angel Navarro of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party argued against the bill. "This...

What does freedom mean to you as an American? I've seen people talking about defending freedom, people that hate freedom, and the rights of those who are free. My question is: For YOU, what does freedom mean? Is it the right to say or do what you want? Is it the right to own a gun, but not to tell the government? What kind of government does it mean?

Ladies and Gentlemen (yes, Ladies, too), you are about to receive the greatest infringement possible upon your freedoms, one that would cause any other intrusions of the Welfare State into your lives to pale by comparison. For, you see, this planned intervention could quite easily kill you. The twin bills S 89, sponsored by Senator Fritz Hollings (D) and HR 163, sponsored by Representative Charles Rangel (D) are currently pending before the Armed Services Committee. They would legitimize a nationwide draft of individuals aged 18 to 26, male or female, rich or poor, college students or workers or parents or...

"Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No sire, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libeled. The people of this country have not established for themselves such a fabric of despotism. They have not purchased at a vast expense of their own treasure and their own blood a Magna Carta to be slaves." A political giant of the 19th century and a firm proponent of American principles, Daniel Webster spoke in the House of Representatives on December 9, 1814, concerning a proposed draft...

(A public letter to Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald) Most Honorable Senator Fitzgerald, My passion for freedom and the ideals implicit in the founding of the United States of America is unwavering, and the words of Thomas Jefferson concerning the requirement for eternal vigilance if liberty is to be preserved come to mind as I become alerted of a menace to the fundamental rights of Americans that is closer to home than the threat of terrorism itself. While the United States seeks to broadcast the image of liberation, free enterprise, and individual rights abroad, there is a design within the chambers...