Free Republic

There stands before you, ladies and gentlemen, one of the few survivors of the original intrepid band of Neoconservatives. Very early in the 1950s, some of us who declared our belief in the Pe rmanent Tldngs were so denominated by our adversaries; but we did not clasp the epithet to our bosoms as a badge of honor - unlike the people who, a quarter of a century later, pleaded guilty as charged, and gloried in their shame. To put the matter anoth er way, the terms "New Conservative" and "Neoconservative" began to appear in certain journals nearly forty years ago....

Will the American coalition of interests and groups c alled conservative fall apart a few months from now when President Reagan leaves office? Will there succeed to power in Washington a very different coalition, made up of extreme liberals, black radicals, and militant feminists? Is the conservative movemen t in the United States, which began to take form forty years ago, enervated and disheartened, plodding down the road to Avernus? Nay, not so. The political and social attitudes that we call conservative are deeply rooted among Americans, and the leaders of both great political parties are thoroughly aware of that...

The term "libertarianism"is distasteful to people who think seriously about politics. Both Dr. F.A. Hayek and your servant have gone out of their way, from time to time, to declare that they refuse to be tagged with this label. Anyone much influenced by t h e thought of Edmund Burke and of Alexis de Tocqueville - as are both Professor Hayek and this commentator - sets his face against ideology; and libertarianism is a simplistic ideology, relished by one variety of the folk whom Jacob Burckhardt called "the terrible simplifiers." Nevertheless, I have something to say favorable to today's libertarians...

In practical politics, what we call the conservative movement in America is a coalition of several interests and bodies of opinion. In popular journalism, the word "conservative" has come to imply virtually any person who resists the great grim tendency tow a rd a totalist state; or perhaps anybody who sets his face against Communism. So we ought not to be surprised that within this camp called conservative there flourish factions and deep differences of opinion. It is only in their opposition to Leviathan tha t the several factions join forces. I have been asked to offer you four lectures...

Nate Silver points out that Santorum is effectively blocked from seeking statewide federal office in Pennsylvania which means his future is up in the air: Mr. Santorum could also look to statewide office in Pennsylvania, but that might require a reasonably long wait. The incumbent governor there, Tom Corbett, is a Republican and is eligible for another term in 2014, so Mr. Santorum would either need to mount a primary challenge or hope that Mr. Corbett retires. Of Pennsylvania's two incumbent senators, one is a Democrat, Bob Casey, who resoundingly defeated Mr. Santorum in 2006 and who remains fairly popular....

The people of a nation that has experienced unprecedented peace and prosperity for an extended period of time are often lulled to sleep, believing there will never be an end to their good fortune. Many powerful countries throughout history have floundered and decayed as they gradually descended into chaos, not realizing the ultimate fate that awaited them. However, the United States has been granted an opportunity to escape this fate through what appears to be a long-term disaster potentially turning out to be its long-term salvation. That event is the election of Barack Obama as president. Over the past fifty...

Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine how we might elect the next president without seeing a single TV commercial, without a single Political Action Committee, without a single debate, without a single dollar changing hands, without a single "support me and I'll appoint you Secretary of State," without months of endless, meaningless promises that try the soul of the most patient patriots. Can't be done? It can be done. It has been done. It is the system designed by the Framers of the Constitution. It is the system that elected President George Washington. By 1795, however, when it...

Much controversy has arisen recently about the Obama administration leaking details of Israel's planned raid on Iranian nuclear sites by using Azerbaijan as a staging area. The reason for the leaks is simple: if Israel attacks Iran, Obama will lose the presidential election this fall, and BHO will do anything to prevent that from happening. If Israel were to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear weapons capability, Iran would retaliate by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz as it has often threatened. The U.S. Fifth Fleet patrolling the area would likely be called upon to keep the Strait open,...

As noted yesterday, Dr. Khairat Al-Shater, Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), will be the popular, mainstream Egyptian Islamic party's candidate for the Presidency, breaking the MB's pledge not to seek this executive office, and assure itself a potential monopoly on state power. Despite being predictably measured and guarded, thus far, in his public statements, and reported attitudes, even the New York Times conceded that Al-Shater supports "an explicitly Islamic government." Moreover, the Times acknowledges Al-Shater's active promotion of "undemocratic" tendencies: Mr. Shater led a push to bar Brotherhood members from dissenting from the political stands of its Freedom...

President Obama has had lots of bad weeks in his tenure. None has been as bad as last week. Charles Hurt discussed Obama's week: So, in one week, Mr. Obama got caught whispering promises to our enemy, incited a race war, raised serious questions about his understanding of the Constitution, and then got smacked down over his proposed budget that was so wildly reckless that even Democrats in Congress could not support it. It was as if you lumped Hurricane Katrina and the Abu Ghraib abuses into one week for George W. Bush. And added on top of that the...

Talking about Islamic art is rather like talking about the art of the Khanates. The Imperial Kingdom of Genghis Khan was the largest contiguous empire on earth. But just because different lands and cultures were conquered by Genghis Khan doesn't mean that there is a significance to grouping their art. The sphere of power of the Muslim Empire stretched from the borders of China and the Indian subcontinent across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula, and on to the Pyrenees. There needs to be a further rationale for calling art collections from lands conquered...

Dear editors, As a victim of Che Guevara’s atrocities, as a historian, and as a Cuban of Irish descent, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that the city of Galway is planning to erect a monument to Ernesto “Che” Guevara. I don’t mind one bit if those behind this monstrous project want to believe lies — that’s their right in a truly free society — but it would be wrong to allow their abysmal ignorance or willful blindness to stand unchallenged. Those who think highly of Che may be surprised to hear it, but they have way too much...

At the mid-March 2012 congressional hearings on the "Iran-Hezb'allah Threat to the Homeland," chaired by Representative Peter King, top officials from the DEA, the FBI, and the New York City Police Department, as well as senior scholars addressed the alarming capability and motivation of this Axis of Jihad to strike inside the U.S. Critical and timely, this was the latest in a series of hearings that Rep. King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has held to focus attention on the deadly threat to America's national security from the forces of Islamic jihad and sharia. There was an unmentioned...

This just has to be a sign of the times. Record deficits and oil prices rising, and it could all get worse. So the National Geographic channel has begun airing a show named Doomsday Preppers, where viewers can watch end-of-the-world types prepare for doomsday. Each episode highlights several people and their preparations for the end of the world, or, as they often put it, "when the stuff hits the fan." If you are a "doomsday prepper," the show has some pretty useful information, and if not, the show is still pretty entertaining. Some of the calamities predicted by the preppers...

Although President Obama is not the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century, he is rapidly moving in that direction. He is much too accommodating towards the U.S. 's adversaries. American Thinker asked some national security experts how they would characterize the President's recent foreign policy towards North Korea, Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Russia. The unanimous answer; he showed weakness, not strength. A few weeks ago North Korea and the US appeared to have come to an agreement to exchange food for nuclear concessions. The problem is that the agreement was made without the requirement that the North Koreans eliminate rather...

This one is worth a chortle or two. It reminds us how lucky we are to have such a smart president - at least that's what we're told, eh? Weekly Standard: Thomas Buch-Andersen, host of the Danish TV show Detektor, mocked President Obama's political rhetoric in a recent episode. "Obama used a metaphor from boxing to explain Denmark's role in the world," says Buch-Andersen, introducing the segment. He then roles the tape. "That's fairly typical of the way that Danes have punched above their weight in international affairs," President Obama says at a press availability in the Oval Office with...

In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the firemen's sole job it is to burn books. Not just contraband books, but all books. Today, we have our own firemen to metaphorically burn speech, massive flamethrowers in tow. Anything that might disrupt us from our politically correct stupor sets off the alarm in the firehouse. Beatty explains, in Fahrenheit 451, one root cause of the mass censorship to which they have been accustomed: "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. What do we want in this country above all? People want to...

It did not happen. But it could have happened. It is a matter of historical record that Plato was born in Ancient Greece, Aquinas in the Middle Ages, and Jean-Paul Sartre in the Twentieth Century. Yet it would not have been impossible, in the lottery of life, for all three of these talented thinkers to have been conceived by the same woman and, to stretch the imagination to its outer edge, to have been united in the womb as fraternal triplets. What thoughts might these three extraordinary individuals have shared in their close quarters if they were as precocious in...

The President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, has generated so much fear that the most common theme of posted comments and private communications is that he will refuse to relinquish power if defeated in November or that, under some pretext, he will declare a state of martial law. Many, myself included, did not like the Patriot Act that was enacted following 9/11 but there is little evidence that this law has been abused to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights and freedom, though surely some suspected of being terrorists were detained. An Executive Order posted on...

Oh, to be back as a freshman at George Washington University. What I wouldn’t have given to be once again sitting in the economics classroom as Professor Ben Bernanke took to the podium with the intention of lecturing and reshaping young minds regarding the history and mission of the central bank. I would have been awed by the Chairman’s (I mean Professor’s) attack on the gold standard and duly impressed with his grasp of events and reasons for the Great Depression of the 1930s. After all, he is the self-proclaimed expert on that era. In addition, I would have been...