Free Republic

New Orleans has long been pivotal in the struggle for black voting rights. During the Civil War, free blacks there demanded suffrage; their efforts resulted in Lincoln's first public call for voting rights for some blacks in the final speech of his life. Once these rights were won, New Orleans blacks took an active part in politics, leading to the establishment of the South's only integrated public school system. But rights once gained aren't necessarily secure; after Reconstruction, blacks in New Orleans lost the right to vote. As Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote at the time of the Civil War, "revolutions...

One TV commercial says all you need to know about GW Bush's America. And trophy wives. Here is your fear. Here is your fear kicked and stomped upon and artificially inflated and jabbed with pointy rusty knives by teams of meandering capitalist jackasses over at a big American home security company and the advertising agency they've hired to openly hate you. Here is this security company's TV commercial (which one doesn't really matter) running on late-night television just after "Lost" but before "The Daily Show" and wedged precariously between dinner and a walking nightmare and a fistful of inane insulting...

Should be entertaining...starting any minute.

NEW YORK Columnist Ann Coulter made a provocative remark Friday about "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau and editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. Trudeau is shrugging it off, but Rall is considering a lawsuit. Coulter reportedly said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.: "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions."

In this war freedom should come first not after! In New Hampshire the Motto is Live free or Die! I don't need Bush spying on law abiding americans and taking our freedoms. Anyone who surrenders a square inch of freedom to the government in the name of saftey is a traitor and should be treated like one! Let the Bush Fashists all drop dead! Filthy Commys! LET FREEDOM RING!

At a recent conference on the Clinton Administration at Hofstra University, ex-press secretary Jake Siewart made a point that had previously eluded me: It was during the early days of Clinton's presidency that the democratization of instant information made the insider press corps obsolete. To retain their importance and self-regard, these journalists had to invent a new function for themselves, and they did: interpreting, not reporting, the news. But instead of doing the hard work of researching the historical, economic, sociological and political contexts of a given story and then finding a way to explain these in lay terms, they...

What do the bitter neocon nominee and the amazing Oscar-bound film have in common? There is this theory, more of a truism really, tossed about like a fuzzy beach ball by the gurus and the masters and the mystics since Jesus was but a lint ball of possibility in the Great Belly Button of Time. . . .

I was all wrong about "Narnia." Which is to say, about six months ago in this space I was hell-bent on the white-hot idea that Hollywood and the Christian-right group/billionaire that helped produce the tepid and saccharine flick would absolutely ruin "The Chronicles of Narnia" books, ruin the deep magic and the astounding sense of wonder these books held for millions of children (including this writer) by regurgitating them as a slick, dumbed-down, poorly acted smarm-fest full of ham-fisted Jesus allusions and excessive special effects, all from the director who brought you, ahem, "Shrek 2." Things did not, shall we...

I am a Gay Republican but I almost never chime in on political issues. I believe in small government, which the Bush administration has not been good at, as well as low taxes and the free market. I don't believe in manmade global warming and I think environmental activism is mostly a cover for people who want to make more rules to control our lives. Social issues don't get me very excited and I know I should be more grateful to my gay forefathers for all their sacrifices, but I've never encountered homophobia in my entire life so gay rights...

In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well? "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in...

Yes, I know you were drunk. Must've been. Either drunk or on serious meds and/or you just didn't give much of a damn about anything anyway because you're just one of those people, one of those types who comes lurching around the city like a chunk of numbed pain in your big-ass mid-'80s burgundy car with the white top and chrome bumpers -- an old Cadillac? Monte Carlo? -- early last Sunday morning to wreak casual havoc. Is that about right? Do you remember any of it? Here is what I'm guessing: probably not. Let me tell you what happened,...

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost? And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob...

Apparently, it wasn't just "invade Iraq and Afghanistan in my name." A special report: Scene: White House private residence, night, not long ago. President Bush present in his most favoritest guns 'n' bunnies PJs. Laura asleep, knocked out by a combination of too much Good Housekeeping and excessive hair-spray fumes. Suddenly, a burst of black smoke. A deep, resonant voice speaks: "Psst! George! God here, taking a break from supervising the well-being of eight billion troubled souls along with infinite galaxies of unimaginable vastness to speak with you directly one more time because, well, you're special, aren't you, George? Yes...

Has anyone here ever been banned from FR and you are a sincere conservative, not just some troll? If so, why were you banned? Just a question..

The Unites States with Bush in front is actin like a world police. Everything they do is right, and everyone else has to obey. How would americans react if an Arab nation suddently decided to invade the States? Or put up military bases in USA like Americans have in several muslim counties? If the Unites states want to fight terrorism they have to start reorganizing their own foreign politic. And you should also start thinking about who you want for president. A cowboy who likes to play war is definatly not a good president. Was the war on Iraq really...

Huge crowds, rabid devotees and no Mick Jagger in sight. Are you afraid? Mark Morford Wednesday, August 3, 2005 I have never been to a big creepy megachurch. This is my first confession. I have never been to, say, Lakewood Church in Houston, the biggest, glossiest megachurch of all, which just dumped a staggering $75 million to renovate the former stadium for the Houston Rockets and turn it into a massive pulsing swaying arm-raisin' eye-glazed weirdly repressed House o' Jesus.

Excuse me for infiltrating your kingdom, but I need to vent. I just had to pay $2.41 a gallon for gas and I can't afford this. I blame Bush and his illegal wars for this travesty. And since you are part of the remaining 40% of dummies who still support that assclown, I blame you, too. I hope so much the Democrats take back Congress in 2006 so this nazi will be impeached and tossed in the clink. How you idiots can't see this man is pure evil, I don't know. Hopefully, both he and KKKarl Rove will be in...

I am soo sorry that I ever voted for that liar George W. Bush. He has done more harm to this country than Bill Clinton ever could. I say impeach him now.

Boy, is this gutsy, huh. Conservatism is a paranoid, fearful personal philosophy and embracing it is a sign of emotional weakness. By its very definition, conservatism is opposed to progress. Conservatives believe we ought to "conserve" existing institutions and social norms, speaking from a positions which is always on the verge of being "led astray," and reflecting with an imperfect memory on the topics of fictional "Greatest Generations" and "Golden Ages." Nothing that sets itself against progress can claim to be on the side of good. Accordingly, conservatives, however nice they might otherwise be, for turning their energies against a...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...