Free Republic

Thanks to Bernie and Hillary, Socialism is on everyone’s mind. These politicians, like so many in our media and universities, claim it’s a glorious idea. Usually thought of as an economic philosophy, Socialism is more sweeping than that. It dictates how all of society must be organized. It claims to be fairer; it claims to deliver happiness. Socialism is a philosophy of life that, I’ll argue, steals the life right out of you. The central vision, indeed the central requirement, is that everyone be equal and cooperative. Competition is evil. Striving for success is scorned. In order to obtain the...

This incessant clamoring by voters and punditry for better "leaders" and more "leadership" is one of the most unsavory, dangerous, and un-American tendencies in political discourse. When Donald Trump was asked last week by Joe Scarborough what he made of an endorsement from Vladimir Putin -- a thug who's probably murdered journalists and political opponents and more -- the GOP presidential front-runner responded, "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country." Then he offered an incredibly dumb moral equivalency about how the United States also does "plenty of killing." There was...

It was the Detroit News headline "Trump goes after Ford Motor Co." not how long Hillary went overtime in the restroom that got our attention. Donald Trump made a whistle stop outside Grand Rapids, Michigan to take aim at Ford’s plans to expand production in Mexico. Trump promised if elected he would threaten manufacturers with big tariffs on imports to discourage building manufacturing plants south of the border. Trump to Ford, "If you build that plant in Mexico, I’m going to charge you 35 percent on every car, truck part that you send into our country," he said. "Every single...

President Barack Obama on Saturday issued a statement about the shooting that took place at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Friday.Three people, including a policeman, were killed in the incident.“If we truly care about this--if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience--then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them,” said Obama. “Period.  Enough is enough.”Here is the full text of President Obama’s statement: The last...

As France grapples with the implications of allowing hundreds, possibly thousands of ISIS radicals into its country as immigrants and "refugees" in the wake of last week's massive terror attack on Paris, the Obama administration has continued to cover up the Islamic threads that run through two recent terror attacks on U.S. soil while doubling down on the importation of more Muslim refugees. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has called a hearing for Thursday morning to examine the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on national security. At the same time Speaker Paul Ryan is...

Ever since Hillary Clinton announced her run for the presidency concerns have been raised in many quarters, by people of all political persuasions, that she was simply too old to hold the office if she was elected. Hillary, if elected, would be the second oldest person to win the office after Ronald Reagan. But where Reagan was very active throughout his life, Hillary is a different story.    Hillary never participated in athletics when she was younger, something about being too ugly to participate. And now, as she approaches the BIG SEVEN-ZERO she is very out of shape. It is a safe...

One day after the Islamic State group killed or injured about 500 people in a series of attacks in Paris, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., linked climate change to the spread of terrorist groups overseas. At the second Democratic presidential debate, held Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa, Sanders was asked whether he stood by his previous claims that climate change was the No. 1 threat to national security. He said he did."Climate change is directly related to the rise of global terrorism," Sanders said, adding that it would cause nations to start "struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts...

Bernie Sanders persisted in using shopworn stats on income inequality and Hillary Rodham Clinton glossed over the well-heeled donors to her campaign in the latest Democratic presidential debate. Some of the claims in the debate Saturday night and how they compare with the facts: CLINTON: "Since we last debated in Las Vegas, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by guns. Two hundred children have been killed. This is an emergency." She said that in the same period there have been 21 mass shootings, "including one last weekend in Des Moines where three were murdered." THE FACTS: The claim appears to...

**SNIP** Clinton responded that she was representing New York in the Senate when downtown Manhattan was attacked and noted that she helped the city's financial hub rebuild. "That was good for New York and it was good for the economy and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country," she said, her voice rising. Her response drew an incredulous response on social media sites like Twitter, and the debate's moderators asked Clinton to respond to one Twitter user, who took issue with her mention of 9/11 to justify the contributions. "Well, I'm sorry that whoever...

You May Be A Communard If ... Definition of "communard" 1.1 (Communard) historical. A supporter of the Paris Commune. Origin Late 19th century: from French, from commune. #YouMayBeACommunardIf ... * You feel that you have the "right" to not be offended. * You think that you have the "right" to "feel safe" * You feel that you have the "right" to free healthcare * You feel that you have a "right" to a free college education. * You feel that you have the "right" to free housing * You feel that you have the "right" to enslave others * You...

“When people stir up sedition on social networks using their real name, it’s not only the state that has to act, but also Facebook as a company should do something against these paroles,” Merkel told regional newspaper Rheinische Post. She said Facebook already had the necessary code of conduct, but there was a lack of control and enforcement. “The rules need to be implemented,” Merkel said. Last month, Justice Minister Heiko Maas accused Facebook of doing too little to thwart racist and hate posts. Maas sent a letter to Facebook public policy director Richard Allan in Dublin saying he received...

There’s a basic difference in the traditions of political science between “authoritarians” and “totalitaritarians.” People throw both of these words around, but as is so often the case, they’re using words they may not always understand. They have real meaning, however, and the difference between them is important.Simply put, authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion. Authoritarians are a dime a dozen; totalitarians are rare. The authoritarians are the guys in charge who want to stay in charge, and don’t much care about you, or what you’re doing, so long...

Since ancient Athens free speech has been at the heart of political freedom. “Free men have free tongues,” as Sophocles said, for freedom depended on citizens empowered to speak freely in the public deliberations about policy and the laws through which they governed. That’s why the Founders wrote the First Amendment, to prevent force from trumping law by silencing dissent. That’s also why the enemies of political freedom always try to destroy free speech.Violence or force has been the usual instrument for controlling speech, whether by murder, torture, incarceration, burning books, or shutting down presses and Internet sites. Today a...

History is not static and it does not progress linearly. There was more free speech and unimpeded expression in 5th-century Athens than in Western Europe between 1934-45, or in Eastern Europe during 1946-1989. An American could speak his mind more freely in 1970 than now. Many in the United States had naively believed that the Enlightenment, the U.S. Constitution, and over two centuries of American customs and traditions had guaranteed that Americans could always take for granted free speech and unfettered inquiry That is an ahistorical assumption. The wish to silence, censor, and impede thought is just as strong a...

In post-Soviet Russia, you don’t make memes. Memes make (or unmake?) you. That is, at least, the only conclusion we can draw from an announcement made this week by Russia’s three-year-old media agency/Internet censor Roskomnadzor, which made it illegal to publish any Internet meme that depicts a public figure in a way that has nothing to do with his “personality.” Sad Keanu? Nope. Sad Putin? Absolutely not. “These ways of using [celebrities’ images] violate the laws governing personal data and harm the honor, dignity and business of public figures,” reads the policy announcement from Roskomnadzor. To be clear, this isn’t a new law passed by parliament...

David Greco, cofounder and executive director of ARTE Inc., said Wednesday he’s confident police will be able to identify the individual who vandalized one of the organization’s “Heroes & Icons” posters at City Hall earlier this week. The unidentified vandal scrawled the word “asesino,” the Spanish word for “murderer,” in black ink atop the shoulder of the Argentine Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Greco said a police report has been filed and City Hall security personnel are reviewing surveillance camera footage. The exhibit, which went up Sept. 22 to honor Hispanic History Month, includes approximately 40 posters depicting Latino historical...

The Islamists are coming for us. For them, it's a fight to the death. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can get to work arranging for their death Is Islamism a Totalitarian System Like Nazism and Communism? The concept of a totalitarian state was an invention of the twentieth century. The notion of a state or nation whose government could control virtually all aspects of its citizens’ lives was not conceivable in prior times. It is certainly true that in monarchies throughout history, the average subject had little capability to individually alter his finances, geographical mobility or political...

For a few months in 1966, the budding romance between film star George Hamilton and Lynda Bird Johnson, daughter of the 36th president, was the talk of Washington....But a previously confidential FBI file - which a Philadelphia judge last week outlined in an opinion and ordered to be released - shows for the first time how far Johnson went to protect his daughter and his presidency

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced this week the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax (SWEET Act), which aims to institute a tax of one cent per teaspoon—4.2 grams—of sugar, high fructose corn syrup or caloric sweetener. The measure (HB 5279), introduced Wednesday says, “A 20-ounce bottle of soda contains about 16 teaspoons of sugars. Yet, the American Heart Association recommends that Americans consume no more than six to nine teaspoons of sugar per day.” Even though the manufacturers of the sweet drinks are targeted to pay the tax, the text of the bill itself notes that the goal is to reduce public consumption...

Last night, New York Times reporter Josh Barro tweeted out a disturbing message: “Anti-LGBT attitudes are terrible for people in all sorts of communities. They linger and oppress, and we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly.” This is rather shocking. Barro is no angry blogger writing manifestos in his basement. He is a respected reporter from a prestigious newspaper that prides itself on equanimity in the face of heated debate. Yet he seems, by any reasonable measure, to be fomenting a campaign to rout all dissenters from the sexual revolution. Erick Erickson wrote a brief response to Barro’s tweet, to...