Free Republic

In these dire times, many are looking to the church to offer hope, but true hope and peace only come through conviction of sin and deep repentance. This is how we will truly change our nation. We can’t make bad people good; only God can do that. The term “Achilles’ heel” refers to an area of weakness and vulnerability. The American church today has an Achilles’ heel—a lack of prayer and powerful preaching. Both are vitally important to spiritual health. Sadly, many Christian leaders focus on image rather than intimacy with Christ, being woke instead of waking up from their...

"...The exchange is the "front door" of ObamaCare. It is designed to look like a marketplace, where folks can shop for health insurance from a group of approved insurers. In reality, it is a carefully orchestrated faux market, where people will all buy the same federally approved product, albeit with different-colored wrapping paper..." "...With the requirement of a federal imprimatur for any state-established model, the "threat" of instituting a federally run exchange means simply that should we choose not to set up an exchange, the feds will do for us precisely what they would have required of us -- except...

Consumers’ pain at the gas pump will likely be shared by President Obama at the polls in 2012 and could cost him a second term unless energy prices take a drastic turn for the better in the next 18 months. “Energy prices should be the Achilles’ heel for Obama,” said Scott Wheeler, executive director of a conservative political action committee. The average gasoline pump price across the country is $3.621 per gallon, the Energy Information Administration reported. Prices in some parts of the country are already topping $4 a gallon. And the uncertain global situation isn’t helping. “Unrest in the...

In my recent article “Checkmate,” I made the case that President Obama’s grand strategy has outfoxed the opposition, dooming us all to a massive increase in the scope and power of Uncle Sam. Is the situation hopeless? Never! If Americans who believe in individual liberty and free markets rally to the cause, then we may some day look back on the current gloomy period as the Valley Forge winter of a new American revolution. The Achilles’ heel of Obama is most likely the hubris that is common to those who seek “nothing less than the total transformation” of a society...

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist...