Free Republic

As spring officially begins today, America’s poet laureate of the changing seasons is getting renewed interest for his contributions not only to literature, but modern-day science. Britain’s The Guardian newspaper recently reported that the journals of Henry David Thoreau have been recruited to glean crucial insights about global warming. Thoreau, a studious amateur naturalist, recorded the date of first spring-time blooms for a wide variety of plants in his native New England. But comparing Thoreau’s observations with more recent data, Boston University researchers have concluded that today’s flowers are blooming about 10 days earlier – powerful evidence that the Earth’s...

[1] I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least";(1) and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. . . . . . [11] When I converse with the freest of my neighbors,...

I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least";(1) and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; .............

Anybody remember “That’s What I Like about the South”? How about Phil Harris, who had a hit with that ditty in 1947? Let’s not always see the same hands. The point is I like the South. Born and raised here. Have relatives all over. But some folks actually fear the South. That got me thinking. Last week staffers from the House Homeland Security Committee came to the Bank of America NASCAR race in Concord, North Carolina. It was a fact-finding trip about “public health-preparedness at mass gatherings.” Organizers of the trip advised the staffers to get vaccinated before they went...

Rereading “Resistance to Civil Government,” as I turned the pages and absorbed Thoreau’s words, I heard the unmistakable ruffling of rotten clothes filled with old bones. I realized the reverberation, which at first began as a mild, almost imperceptible sliver of sound, and grew to a thunderous dry-clanking rumble by the final pages, was the dead thinker finally flipping in his grave. Thoreau begins “Resistance” by voicing the transcendental belief that as human beings become enlightened, their need for governmental authority diminishes. Although government in some form is presently necessary, it will disappear as individual Americans take ultimate responsibility for...

In his Lives of Famous Greeks, Plutarch explains that he writes biography because virtue inspires imitation among other men. Today, I was reading about Henry David Thoreau, and I began to wonder whether he was truly virtuous and worthy of imitation. Thoreau tells us, "Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around." In July of 1846, this American voiced his opposition to slavery laws and war against Mexico by going to jail for refusing to pay a poll tax. Afterwards, he was invited to address the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts in a lecture on the event. This speech...

I have a dream, too Posted: January 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com I have a dream that America will return to its heritage of freedom. But before that dream is realized, we've got to stop miseducating kids at every turn. What do I mean? Take what your kids are learning today about Martin Luther King and the principles of American freedom. They learn that "civil rights are the freedoms and rights that a person has as a member of a community, state or nation." That's what Scholastic magazine, distributed through schools all over the country, published four...

For any man today who thinks and desires the capacity to unrestrictedly apply the conclusions of his mind, the scope of his current externally-imposed confinement is colossal and multifaceted. The government of this country has usurped almost every sphere of human activity, shackling creative entrepreneurial innovators through “antitrust” laws, which restrict the amount of market share a business may through its owners’ skill and the quality of its product acquire. It has erected barriers to the advancement of thoughtful freethinkers by the imposition of affirmative action initiatives that prevent many of them from acquiring education and jobs for faults not...