Free Republic

The greatest collapse of a mighty state, a large human so­ciety and a fruitful civilization of which we possess a reasonably ac­curate record, has been immortal­ized by Edward Gibbon’s histori­cal classic, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire. Henry Adams remarked that Gibbon did not really explain the fall; but this criticism is not altogether just. As the following excerpts from The Decline and Fall show, the philosophic historian offered a number of reflections on the symp­toms and causes of the drama which he set out to describe: "This long peace and the uni­form government of the Romans introduced...

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Faulkner Focus,” Fox News Medical Contributor and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Professor Dr. Marty Makary argued that the biggest failure in the coronavirus pandemic response is the failure to tailor policies based on individual risk, and that “those who have chosen not to get vaccinated and have not had COVID, they do so at their own individual risk. We’ve never seen this level of martial law and paternalism to prevent mild infection in 300 million Americans.”

If you think state and federal government COVID-19 policies are too restrictive, you haven’t been to a college campus lately. Schools across the country have imposed extreme, micromanaging rules on 19-22 year olds—a demographic more likely to die from the seasonal flu and pneumonia than COVID.Paying top dollar at already overpriced institutions for vastly inferior remote learning, university students remain unnecessarily isolated and barred from using the services and facilities they and their families are paying for. Many schools, like Southern Methodist University, forbid students from having guests in their dorm rooms. Others have even installed security cameras in the...

Decrying "the inequality of the current IRA and 401k retirement plans," Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden promises "big changes. Right now, the only people who benefit from the IRA and 401k programs are those who earn an income. This is unfair to those who are out of work and have no aptitude for supporting themselves. This inequity will change once I'm elected." "Under my plan these formerly individual retirement accounts will all be merged into Social Security," Biden said. "There's no good reason why a person who has worked, saved, and invested for retirement should have a better retirement than...

The riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing have been decried by some black leaders, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the media.L. Joy Williams, president of the Brooklyn NAACP, tweeted Saturday, “I know that our anger and frustration is real. I feel it myself and I know it exists in my community and in Black people across this country. But my gut is telling me that something nefarious is going on here.”Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP legal defense fund also tweeted: “Seeing some troubling clips. I hope that someone is putting together the clips of...

Commentators, almost always from the right, have documented liberal media bias for many years now. And the response by the perpetrators of this bias has been both constant and predictable: Circle the wagons and blame the accusers. Accuse us of bias for seeing their bias. The bias we've been talking and writing about is usually about partisan politics and hot social issues like abortion. But there's one kind of liberal media bias that hasn't gotten much attention. It's a bias that liberals both in and out of the media often attach to conservatives, but almost never to themselves. It's racial...

excerpt: In 2009, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein published a book, called “Nudge,” on how government and other organizations could induce people to avoid common errors. Last year, Sunstein gave the Storrs Lectures at Yale on the topic, which will soon be published as a book called “Nanny Statecraft.” Last month, the Obama administration announced that it is creating a new team to explore applications of this sort of empirical research to policy-making.

Former Obama administration regulatory czar Cass Sunstein has published an op-ed: that the president wants a "second Bill of Rights" alongside the existing one. Sunstein located the source of Obama's inspiration in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union address, rather than the South African constitution--though the American academics whose writings inspired South Africa's ambitious Bill of Rights could well have taken Roosevelt's proposals as their foundation. Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights--not a list of constitutional amendments, but policy goals--was as follows: In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak,...

Thanks to Gay Martin the Illinois Family Institute for sounding the warning about a new and ridiculous attempt on the part of state government to meddle in private education. The IFI's release: Bill to Require Parents to Register Their Children with State SB 136 has been proposed in the Illinois General Assembly by State Senator Edward D. Maloney (D-Chicago) that will affect all children in non-public schools, including home schools. If SB 136 were to pass, it would compel all parents or legal guardians of home or privately schooled students to register with the state. Registration that is now voluntary...

The Berkeley/Oakland area was on high alert last week...but not because of a natural disaster, like an earthquake. A jury was deciding the fate of a white police officer charged with killing a black male at a BART station. People all around town began preparing for riots, certain that if the verdict was "not guilty," the streets would erupt with violence. The police officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, a lesser charge than many hoped for, but still a prison sentence of years. The first night after the verdict, 83 people were arrested, which, as riots go, is pretty tame....

We find ourselves in the midst of the latest leftist media attempt to explain to us exactly who and what we conservatives are. You know the drill: racist, homophobic, bitter, gun-slinging, bible-clinging Neanderthals. An effort to define its enemies happens every time the Democratic Party perceives itself to be in trouble. You may recall that when America endorsed the Contract with America by giving Republicans the House majority in 1994, the late ABC anchorman Peter Jennings famously attributed it to a "temper tantrum" by the electorate. Similarly, when their rock star of a president, Bill Clinton, faced removal from office,...

The Obama administration is launching a rabble-rousing assault on big banks. Thus we see on display in Washington another example of how ideas have an impetus of their own that drives those who hold them to predictable deeds. These acts need not be destructive, but in this case they definitely are. Failing healthThe attempt by the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration to take over America’s health care system was derailed when the election of Republican Scott Brown as Massachusetts senator deprived the Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority. One reason for Brown’s victory was voters’ fears that the bloated,...

I used to have a job that felt like Divine Grace. Since I was raised secular, it was as close to a religious experience as I had ever had. I was fresh out of graduate school in my late 20s, working with black foster families and relatives in dicey areas of Oakland. Not a day went by that I didn't cry -- and not just because of the sorrowful plight of the kids. I'd never been around people like this before, who loved God, who praised Jesus, who lived to serve him. In retrospect, I think my tears came because...

The creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (“CFPA”) is a very bad idea and should be rejected. The proposal is not salvageable and cannot be improved in substance or in form. The proposal is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the causes of the financial crisis. The Obama Administration’s Financial Regulatory Reform White Paper, and the intellectual underpinnings of the new CFPA as articulated by law professors Elizabeth Warren of Harvard and Oren Bar-Gill of New York University, set forth the blueprints for a powerful regulatory agency designed to react to a perceived failure of consumers to understand...

Thank you very, very much. You see us poor helpless inferior blacks (oh forgive me, I must be politically correct, "African Americans"), and you want to help us using your superior intellect. After all, we could not possibly succeed in this racist, homophobic and greedy country without your assistance. I first met you guys in the 70s when I attended the prestigious Maryland Institute College of Art on a scholarship. A black kid from the ghetto, I found myself amongst white kids from well to do families. I worked a part-time job to cover my books and art supplies. You...

<p>PENSACOLA, Fla. (Aug. 14) -- Dr. Jason Newsom railed against burgers, french fries, fried chicken and sweet tea in his campaign to promote better eating in a part of the country known as the Redneck Riviera. He might still be leading the charge if he had only left the doughnuts alone.</p>

If you want to know what to expect from the Democrats’ plans for total government control of health care—and government control of everything else for that matter—consider the case of Terry Kaide, 87, and her husband Sidney, 89, both of Hawaii, Barack Obama’s state of origin. For two years this couple was not allowed to live together in the same residential care home. Why? Because government regulations allow two patients paid for by Medicaid but only one privately-paying patient to reside in that facility at the same time. This rule was meant to ensure that there are enough beds for...

This paper presents the first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. [snip] This study improves on prior attempts to score economic freedom for American states in three primary ways: (1) it includes measures of social and personal freedoms such as peaceable citizens’ rights to educate their own children, own and carry firearms, and be free from unreasonable search and seizure; (2) it includes far more variables, even on economic policies alone, than prior studies, and there are no missing data on any variable; and (3) it...

"Thaler and Sunstein have set themselves a seemingly impossible task. Paternalists maintain that it is sometimes justifiable to interfere with someone's freedom, if doing so will promote his own good. Smokers, putting aside the issue of secondary smoke, do not violate others' rights: they harm only themselves. Nevertheless, a paternalist about smoking would think it justifiable forcibly to prevent people from smoking. Libertarians deny that such interference is acceptable. Force may be used only in response to aggression....

OUT IN the Pacific time zone, the nanny-statists have been busy. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed a law banning restaurants from using trans fats when preparing food. In Seattle, city councilors passed a measure requiring shoppers to pay 20 cents for every plastic or paper bag they use in grocery, drug, or convenience stores. In Los Angeles, a new "moratorium" forbids new fast-food restaurants within a 32-square-mile section of the city that is home to 500,000 low-income residents. "Ultimately," the moratorium's sponsor declared, "this ordinance is about providing choices." In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed a...