Free Republic

From The Center for Constitutional Studies Democratizing the Constitution: The Failure of the Seventeenth AmendmentC. H. Hoebeke*[From HUMANITAS, Volume IX, No. 2, 1996 © National Humanities Institute, Washington, DC USA] It was with no small sense of vindication that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan signed the proclamation of 31 May 1913, declaring the Seventeenth Amendment duly ratified and incorporated into the fundamental laws of the United States. More than twenty years earlier as a Nebraska congressman, "The Great Commoner" had joined the struggle to free the Senate from the control of corrupt state legislatures, and despite three failed campaigns for...

The “WHOOSH” you hear regularly is the air escaping from Washington’s ideological promiscuity bag. The Socialist Party now has control of both floors. Politicians of both parties, propagandists, poets, global warming hypocrites and “human rights” impersonators are all plugged into the same cultural grid, which somehow has its main power source in all of our pockets. American citizenry, harboring some worrisome questions about the state of the Republic and sick of wildly divergent and often antagonistic political maneuvering, and war, voted Democrat.

Phyllis Schlafly : Middle class will look for a friend in either partyBy Phyllis Schlafly, Townhall Forum Monday, November 27, 2006 The best post-mortem on the 2006 election came from that perennial politician, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. He said, "People want to know who's on their side. Whether it's health care or wages or retirement issues, they want to have someone on their side." The biggest electoral bloc of the "they" who are seeking friends is the middle class, which includes people variously labeled blue-collar workers, skilled workers or Reagan Democrats. They are the swing voters, often called the...

Open Letter to Republicans John Lewis There are two things that all Republicans know today: that you lost the mid-term election, and that the loss was a repudiation of President Bush's policies. What you must now figure out is why. Why did Americans vote as they did? What specific policies did they reject? The answer you accept will determine whether you discover a road to victory for your country and your party, or whether you stumble further into defeat. You have heard—and will continue to hear—many explanations for the election results. You have been told, for instance, that Democratic obstruction...

THOSE CONSERVATIVES who are waking up dispirited about the Democratic Party?s takeover of the House and its gains in the Senate would be wise to think back to a Wednesday two years ago. On the morning of Nov. 3, 2004, conservatives were euphoric as President Bush was re-elected comfortably and the GOP gained seats in the House and Senate ? knocking off Tom Daschle in the process. Republicans began to talk in terms of being a permanent majority. The Democrats, meanwhile, were demoralized ? seemingly destined for political irrelevance. A lot has changed in two years, and a lot will...

Conservative? Thinking of sitting this Fall's elections out? You may want to think twice. Oh, I am quite aware of the failure by Republican leadership to protect our borders and curb spending. But there is real historic proof that suggests that sitting idly by as the minority party assumes power could very well put your party at a serious disadvantage in the years to come. I recently came across a book by John Ferling called "Adams V. Jefferson: The tumultuous election of 1800." It recalls the classis battle between the incumbent Federalist John Adams and the Republican challenger Thomas Jefferson....

After Compassionate Conservatism On the surface, the Republican Party appears to be better poised now than at any time since Calvin Coolidge. Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress for more than a decade (interrupted briefly by Senator James Jeffords's defection in mid-2001), occupied the White House for the last five years, and held a majority of governorships since the 1994 elections. In short, the GOP has come a long way since 1968 or 1980.So why are Republicans feeling so sour in 2006? Having now held power in Congress for over a decade, there is a sense that the corruption-fighting...

HARLEM -- When the Republican Party declared its courtship of African-American voters a priority, it began looking forward to the day when enough black voters shift to the GOP to make even Democratic Party strongholds like New York -- and places like Harlem's 125th Street Square, the historic center of black intellectual thought -- fertile ground for Republican candidates. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised eyebrows last year with a series of speeches at black gatherings, declaring at the NAACP convention that his party ''was wrong" for past race-baiting strategies. A small but significant group of African-American...

Last week, Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota signed legislation prohibiting abortion in the state except in cases where the mother's life is in danger. The bill passed in the South Dakota Senate, 23-12. It passed in the South Dakota House of Representatives with flying colors, 50-18. Members of both political parties voted for the bill; the bill's chief sponsor was Sen. Julie Bartling, a Democrat. Naturally, Planned Parenthood has pledged its opposition to the law. Sarah Stoesz, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota, states that Planned Parenthood will gauge public feeling about the bill...

By Tony Snow Dec 3, 2005 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Democrats gibber about Republicans' writhing in a culture of corruption, they're on to something -- but not what they think. The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards -- and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society. The collapse stems from the simplest and most natural of causes, the survival instinct. Within months of seizing...

Waterspout taps into an old spring of republicanism By Tom Peterkin, Ireland Correspondent (Filed: 29/10/2005) An apparently innocuous waterspout given to a small market town after it suffered from crop failure would appear to be an unlikely symbol of English colonial oppression. But plans to restore a 19th century limestone well in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, have re-ignited ancient Anglo-Irish animosities. A £27,000 proposal to refurbish the spout and reinstate a plaque commemorating the "unparalleled benevolence of the English nation to the poor of Ireland" has outraged republicans, still smarting from the treatment of Irish peasants during the Great Famine of...

The Boer Afrikaners of the northern regions of South Africa -ie: the region where the former Boer Republics were once established- were generally considered more conservative & republican than those especially in the Western Cape. Is this still true? A recent growing emergence of Boer nationalism among educated & different classes as a result of their increasinly dire circumstances would suggest that past political differences might be yielding in the face of a growing collective threat.

Subject: The Political Economy of Cows DEMOCRATIC You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. Barbara Streisand sings for you. REPUBLICANISM You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So? SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow. COMMUNIST You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour. CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. You sell...

Some of the sovereign countries who have the monarch as Head of State ‘want out’ THE confusion triggered by the Prince of Wales’s marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles could precipitate a new wave of republicanism across Britain’s former colonies and jeopardise the future monarch’s chances of becoming head of the Commonwealth. As the debate rages over whether Mrs Parker Bowles will become Queen Camilla, the issue has caused deep concern among some of the 15 sovereign countries around the world who still recognise the British monarch as their head of state. Joel Kibazo, spokesman for the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is...

THEY call it the Padre Pio, and even by the sinister standards of Belfast punishment beatings it is grotesque. At least three teenagers are known to have fallen victim to the IRA's latest mutilation technique: with their hands tied together as if in prayer, they are shot through both palms with a single bullet from point-blank range. Named after the stigmata of Christ's wounds from the Cross, the punishment is designed to teach a lesson to youths who dare challenge their local IRA leaders. Given the strong Roman Catholicism of republican areas of Belfast, the symbolism of the attacks is...

In most republics there seems to be an unmistakable air of arrogance about the country, certainly not limited to but definitely including such supposed trailblazers as The United States and France. The general public seems convinced that theirs is the ultimate and most perfect method of organizing human endeavor the world has yet seen, and that they represent what all other countries aspire to, the mentality that all nations will be republics when they "grow up". Values are attributed to a style of government, revolutionary figures, real or imagined (lady liberty) become secular saints and some, such as President Lincoln,...

That Ukranian protest song got me thinking. We all make fun of the painfully-earnest and stridently-liberal balladeers who fill us with so much excess stomache acid, but, hey, I'll be the one to admit it: I'm jealous. Where's my protest anthem? Where's my catchy sing-a-long rock rebellion? Sure, such songs don't really advance a philosophical position. They're the near-religious chants of the already-converted. But damnit, it gets kinda tedious just quoting Larry Kudlow and Deborah Orin all day. Why can't we occasionally just be able to sing our politics and maybe even groove to it? ... The only real conservative...

The Monarchy, the Conservatives, the Future, and Canada: Why the Monarchy must go and the right should support it By J.J. McCullough November 20, 2004 From time to time I break ranks with mainstream conservatives. Whether it be religion or the environment, tax cuts or gay marriage, I accept that there will always be a great deal of divergence of opinion within the conservative camp, and I will not necessarily always be on the same side of an issue as some of my contemporaries. For the most part such divergences don't bother me. Live and let live, and all that....

Life Liberty and Property, but among these three, Property.

No nationalists on Jack's 'shining hill' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. "A struggle is underway for the soul of the Republican Party, between a minority of protectionist xenophobes and those who are pro-trade and pro-immigration." Thus does Jack Kemp begin a column in which he jettisons the black conservative running for Congress in North Carolina whom he earlier endorsed. Kemp accuses Vernon Robinson of "running a very negative and aggressive anti-immigration campaign ... contrary to the core values of the party of Lincoln." Jack is right about that struggle for the soul...