Free Republic

“Do you have a Chinese passport?” She stared at me with a cold, calm intensity, clutching my British passport. I took out my Chinese passport and handed it to her through the narrow window. She flipped through its pages. The way she handled it gave me a sudden stomach ache. I sensed something bad was coming. “You know it’s illegal to possess two passports as a Chinese citizen?” she remarked in her even-toned, slightly jarring voice. “Illegal?” I repeated. My surprise was totally genuine. It had never occurred to me that having two passports was against Chinese law. The woman...

“If you’re … pathetically weak, the country is going to be overrun with millions of people, and if you’re strong, then you don’t have any heart, that’s a tough dilemma. … I’d rather be strong.” So said President Donald Trump, on issuing his order halting the separation of children from parents caught breaking into the country. Trump’s enemies are celebrating a victory. Yet the issue remains. Under U.S. law, teenagers and tots cannot be detained for more than 20 days and must be held in the least-restrictive facilities. But if the children cannot be separated from the parents as they...

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.PJ Media. What role if any did Islam play in shaping Europe’s identity, both in the past and the present? Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, Washington, DC, and author of the new book, Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity, claims that Islam had a largely positive impact on Europe’s identity (including by invoking the Myth of the Andalusian Paradise). Thus, any European suspicion or rejection of Muslim migrants is wholly unwarranted.  As Ahmed elaborates in a recent article: To understand what is happening...

What a busy week. Oneness more important than theology? Oneness of what? In geopolitics, Iran lied. Many say the march to war continues. This and more in this week's Prophecy Update from John Haller.

What civilization has ever sought to repudiate its own culture and traditions as we do today? ...And of course the assault on the Western heritage from within is a potent phenomenon in Europe, fostered by nearly the entire elite structure of the civilization. Thus it isn’t clear what a few highly accomplished intellectuals, however eloquent or anguished, can do to stem the erosion of the civilizational identity. But we are witnessing the emergence of some powerful political currents within the general European population, manifest in increasingly populist voting patterns in France, Germany, Austria, and elsewhere. Hence the Paris Statement could...

Many Democrats see their party as the working man's choice. They want to soften capitalism's rougher edges, humanize big industry, and give the average American a fighting chance. One may (and should) disagree with their methods, but their intentions are good and their beliefs sincere. That is not how the party elites feel. Their mantra is "open trade and open borders," as Hillary Clinton told Wall Street bankers in a private speech. Recall how the Democrats supported President Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership, a "free trade" deal that would have gutted American industries. And it is Democrats who oppose President Trump's attempts...

To understand any phenomenon, its roots must first be understood. Unfortunately, not only do all discussions on the conflict between Islam and the West tend to be limited to the modern era, but when the past, the origins, are alluded to, the antithesis of reality is proffered. We hear that the West -- itself an anachronism for Europe, or better yet, Christendom -- began the conflict by intentionally demonizing otherwise peaceful and tolerant Muslims and their prophet in order to justify their “colonial” aspirations in the East, which supposedly began with the Crusades. Bestselling author on Islam and Christianity Karen...

Revisiting one of the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation. Five-hundred years ago yesterday, on October 31, 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a German church, thereby launching what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation.  Whatever else can be said of him, Luther unwittingly initiated something else that is often overlooked.  “The Reformation produced one logical if unexpected result,” explains European historian Franco Cardini: “a definite boost to the positive evaluation of Islam, and therefore to the birth and development of an often conventional and mannered pro-Islamic stance”...

The Nazi LARPers and Confederate cosplayers at Charlottesville, along with their alt-right supporters, frequently justify themselves by claiming to be defenders of white culture and heritage. However, it is unclear how a Nazi Tiki-torch parade accomplishes this. Nonetheless, let us consider the merits of the claim, which is, in part at least, a response to leftwing identity politics that relentlessly racialize everything. Unsurprisingly, endlessly essentializing and demonizing whiteness helped produce some whites who accept the premise of racial identity but ditch the conclusion of white guilt in favor of white supremacy. Are they correct that there is a distinct white...

"We've been not only abandoned by the Western countries, we have been betrayed"The West has failed to do enough to protect Christian minorities in the Middle East, the Syriac Catholic Patriarch has said. “I can tell you, we’ve been not only abandoned by the Western countries, but even we have been betrayed,” Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan told The Southern Cross, newspaper of the Diocese of San Diego. He made the comments in a recent interview at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Syriac Catholic Parish in El Cajon. While the Christian minority in Syria and Iraq is composed of “peaceful...

Let me throw down this marker: The West is superior to the rest of the world in every significant way, we should aggressively back our allies over our enemies, and the guiding principle of our foreign policy should always be America’s interests. No apologies. No equivocation. No doubt.What are your questions?Well, if you're a normal American, you won't have any questions - these truths are self-evident. But if you're a progressive, you're gonna have a little sissy snit fit like so many libs did in the wake of the President’s triumphant Warsaw speech. There’s one thing that always sets...

RUSH: As you know, for the bulk of this week and much of last week I have been focusing on the assault on American civilization, American culture, Western civilization. And IÂ’ve been bouncing off of what I call a triumphant speech that Trump gave in Poland about this. And weÂ’ve been talking about the sheer hatred and panic that TrumpÂ’s speech was greeted with by people on the left who despise American culture. And I ran into a very, very good piece about American civilization, Western civilization over on Townhall by Kurt Schlichter, and I want to share it with...

Fight the most important battle of our lifetime, the lifestyle-robbing conspiracy; the one unlike the fake Russians-stole-the-election one keeping the one that matters most well-hidden from public view The biggest tragedy of modern day history is that a president who came into office hating America, and held fast to his tenure for eight long years before being replaced by a president the American lib-left is teaching the world to hate. The visceral, stoked-up “repeat-after-me” hatred of President Donald Trump is the only sign of life in the zombies infected by the pure hate they pick up while watching T.V. Their...

Tucker Carlson became so baffled by former DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse during a Monday interview he stopped the guest with one short question. “What the hell are you talking about?” Tucker asked. Woodhouse, former president of a Democratic super PAC, was discussing President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland and the media backlash it received. He compared the president’s usage of the phrase “Christian values” to a “dog whistle to white nationalists,” which prompted Carlson’s strong reaction. “Let’s stop with the propaganda … let’s just deal with the text of the speech,” Carlson said. “If you’re a leader of western...

President Trump's speech in Warsaw was a remarkable statement from a western leader in the 21st century - which is why the enforcers of our public discourse have gone bananas over it and denounced it as "blood and soil" "nativism" (The New Republic), "racial and religious paranoia" (The Atlantic), and "tinpot dictator sh*t" (some comedian having a meltdown on Twitter). Much of the speech was just the usual boosterish boilerplate that one foreign leader sloughs off while visiting the capital of another. But that wasn't what caused the mass pearl-clutching. This was the offending passage: There is nothing like our...

WARSAW — President Trump said on Thursday that Western civilization was at risk of decline, bringing a message about “radical Islamic terrorism” and “the creep of government bureaucracy” to a European capital he views as hospitable to his nationalist message.Mr. Trump, who broke with tradition by attacking American leaders and his country’s intelligence services while abroad, delivered his message in a speech to a friendly Polish crowd before a two-day summit meeting of Group of 20 leaders in Hamburg, Germany.Hours later, he flew from Warsaw to Hamburg, where he held a low-key private meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel....

By the time Air Force One started down the runaway at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, to bring President Trump home, the Atlantic had grown markedly wider than it was when he flew to Riyadh. In a Munich beer hall Sunday, Angela Merkel confirmed it. Europe must begin to look out for itself, she said, "take our fate into our own hands. ... The times in which we could rely fully on others, they are somewhat over." Merkel's apprehensions are understandable. A divorce could be in the cards. During his visit to NATO in Brussels and the G-7 in...

Berlin (AFP) — Germany unleashed a volley of criticism Monday against US President Donald Trump, slamming his "short-sighted" policies that have "weakened the West" and hurt European interests. The sharp words from Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel came after Trump concluded his first official tour abroad which took him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Brussels and then Italy for a G7 summit. They followed Chancellor Angela Merkel's warning on Sunday that the United States and Britain may no longer be completely reliable partners. Germany's exasperation was laid bare after the G7 summit which wrapped up on Saturday with the US refusing so...

If Marine Le Pen wins, it’s almost certainly the end of the EU, experts say — and that could bring economic and political turmoil unlike anything the West has seen in decades. Forget Britain’s vote for Brexit. Forget U.S. President Donald Trump’s November win. If Marine Le Pen somehow defeats Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential runoff vote on Sunday, it may be the biggest electoral shock in the West so far this century. A win by the leader of the French far right would see a leading European nation select a president emphatically opposed to globalization and integration, friendly to...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ramped up his anti-European rhetoric on Wednesday, warning that the safety of Western citizens could be in peril if European nations persist in what he described as arrogant conduct. Erdogan's remarks came amid tension over Dutch and German restrictions on Turkish officials who tried to campaign for diaspora votes ahead of an April 16 referendum on expanding the powers of the Turkish presidency. "Turkey is not a country that can be pushed and shoved, whose honor can be toyed with, whose ministers can be ousted, whose citizens can be dragged on the ground," Erdogan told...