Free Republic

many of today’s young people neither understand nor respect the importance of property rights in a free society.. ... Philadelphia .. at least 30 police officers have been injured in the violent unrest, while dozens of people have been arrested for rioting or vandalism. Mobs have descended on Walmart and rushed out carrying TVs, while other agitators ransacked Footlocker for new sneakers. The full number of businesses ravaged by the destruction is increasing and still being tallied. ... This latest outbreak simply adds to the thousands of businesses, from Chicago to Minneapolis and beyond, that have been rioted, ransacked, burned...

The FBI has admitted to gathering secret intelligence about the annual Burning Man festival since 2010. In response to a request under the 2012 Freedom of Information Act, the security service said its Special Events Management unit has kept files on festival-goers, known as 'burners' - to 'aid in the prevention of terrorist activites and intelligence collection'. But the FBI's 16-page response to the question by Inkoo Kang is heavily redacted, with information about the technology being used to secretly gather the information being blanked out. The revelation comes as the 29th Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock...

‘Burn the Quran Day’ Plan Prompts Warnings of Anger, Unrest Wednesday, August 25, 2010 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has joined the growing condemnation of plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Quran on the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. A spokesman for the Jeddah-based bloc of Islamic states expressed concern Tuesday that the planned action by the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville would stir up “anger across the Muslim world and provoke unrest.” The OIC said it hoped the U.S. government would “take...

Smoking can kill you. That's why I don't smoke, and it's why you shouldn't, either. There. I've just done the only things that should be done in a free society to stop people from smoking: I've told you that it's dangerous, I've urged you not to do it, and I've even set a good example. If you'd like other people to be healthy, you should also discourage smoking, too. But if you'd like to be free, and you'd like your neighbor to be free, that's all you should do. It isn't my business to come into your home or business...

Right Angle The town square test Friday March 11 2005 18:24 IST Swapan Dasgupta Conventional wisdom deems conservatism and doctrinaire politics to be wildly incompatible. What the much-misunderstood Enoch Powell termed the “community of nation and church”, coupled with old-fashioned common sense, have been at the heart of conservative approaches to politics. Intellectualism and ideological hair-splitting have traditionally been the prerogatives of the Left. No longer. Ever since Margaret Thatcher put the economist Friedrich von Hayek on a pedestal and embraced monetarism, there has been an unspoken rupture between a Toryism that celebrates Edmund Burke and Lord Salisbury, and the...

Reports that cops from New York City's Hate Crimes unit were sent to see Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" to learn if it inspires hatred have a top Catholic civil rights leader demanding answers from NYPD officials as to what and who was behind the screwball assignment. According to the New York Post, Hate Crimes Unit supervisor Inspector Dennis Blackman ordered the 20 detectives under his command to see the film after it opened last week. A source told the Post that cops feared that someone who already held strong anti-Jewish views or was a religious zealot could...

What A Free Society Really Is Some guy accused me of advocating socialism the other day. The density of the matter — whatever it is — between the ears of some people who call themselves conservatives rivals that of a black hole. Let me tell you what a free society is. In a free society, you pay your medical bills out of your pocket or you don't get any health care. You pay for your own education, and that of your children, out of your own pocket. If you don't have a job, you scrounge or sponge or steal...