Free Republic

NEW YORK -- Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a new record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami. Donors contributed an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006, a 1 percent increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05 billion in 2005. Excluding donations for disaster relief, the total rose 3.2 percent, inflation-adjusted, according to an annual report released Monday by the Giving USA Foundation at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy. Giving historically tracks the health of...

A Unipolar World Americans have an healthy aversion to foreign policy. It stems from a sense of thrift: Who needs it? We’re protected by two great oceans, we have this continent practically to ourselves and we share it with just two neighbors, both friendly, one so friendly that its people seem intent upon moving in with us. It took three giants of the twentieth century to drag us into its great battles: Wilson into World War I, Roosevelt into World War II, Truman into the Cold War. And then it ended with one of the great anti-climaxes in history. Without...

A few weeks after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill stood before the United States Congress and asked a question about our common foe: "What kind of people do they think we are?'' The Axis held much of Europe and Asia and was expecting our two nations to accept our fate quietly, to just lie down and surrender without a fight. Or that's what they hoped. Instead, they found out what kind of people we are. The same question arises as Osama bin Laden sends a message from his cave hide-out, offering a truce to Europe. "Stop spilling our blood,'' said a...

~~~~~~~~~~~~GOD BLESS AMERICA..... Another View We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA. Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title "C"ntarea Americii meaning "Ode To America") on September 24, 2002 in the Romanian newspaper, Evenimentulzilei ("The Daily Event" or "News of the Day"). ~An Ode to America~ Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and...

In Spite of Slow Economy, Americans Set Generosity Record August 14, 2003 Across the country, average Americans are getting a bad wrap from liberal politicians, newspaper editorial writers and leaders of publicly funded nonprofits.   In states where taxpayers and lawmakers have stood up and said “no” to tax increases and “yes” to spending restraint, there has been an often repeated charge that taxpaying Americans are becoming cheap, selfish, or uncaring.   The same charges have been made in Washington in relation to the President’s push for tax relief. But a recently released study by the American Association of...

<p>The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so far has been used against George W. Bush and Tony Blair by their political enemies in Europe. But very little has been made of it in the U.S., which bore the main cost of the war. Now, why would that be?</p>

Here's just a little photo to keep in mind when you hear someone going on (and on) about "American brutality" yada, yada, yada, in Iraq. ========================================= A wounded Iraqi prisoner of war holds his intravenous fluid pack while US Army soldiers carry him to a US Army medical evacuation helicopter for transfer to a nearby US military field hospital for treatment on April 3. Photo: AFP

Amid concern over the treatment of American POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital, Arab News reports Iraqi POWs are being treated with dignity and receiving 24-hour medical care aboard the massive, state-of-the-art floating hospital, USNS Comfort. The hospital ship USNS Comfort leaves Baltimore harbor Sept. 12, 2002. The Baltimore-based Navy hospital ship, which contains 12 operating rooms, an intensive care unit, 1,000 beds and decontamination facilities, is floating off the coast of Bahrain. It was deployed to handle massive coalition battlefield injuries or casualties from a biological or chemical attack. But so far, the majority...

Dear America, you quirky mix of 280 million misfits that have somehow blended into the strongest nation in the world, I write to offer you four apologies and two vows. I, James Black, a European passport holder whose parents are Scottish, whose wife is English, and whose four children are free to be whatever they may want to be (directly because of the sacrifice of your nation), am ashamed for pointing out to a colleague while visiting your country a few days ago that Winston Churchill was wrong when he said the biggest difference between Britain and the United...

<p>The American personality might be characterized as an easygoing, sentimental, fair-minded ruthlessness. We tie yellow ribbons round the old oak tree at the same moment that we dispatch a wing of B-52s to carpet bomb the enemy. No murderer in the world gets as many appeals from his conviction as an American murderer. But when we have finished being fair (about the same length of time that a French murderer has to spend in prison before being released), we fry him. More recently, to show our gentle side, we have taken to killing our murderers with a painless lethal injection.</p>

<p>PFC Joseph DeWitt, 26, from Suffolk County, N.Y., carries to safety an Iraqi boy who was injured during a heavy battle between the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment and Iraqi forces Tuesday.</p>

Tears filled my eyes when I saw this Marine helping this enemy that had just ambused a supply convoy. This surely captures the goodness and nobility of America on film. The tears were there because upon seeing this I thought to myself, "could I be this good, this principled, or would I just put this sob out of his misery on the spot, like they apparently did to our mechanics who were apparently attempting to surrender?"

The revolutionary principles of 1776 - government derives its power from the consent of the governed; governments are instituted to protect our individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; these individual rights come from God - has not yet reached the salons of Europe. Washington understood how contrary these principles were to the thinking of Europe, and so he warned us to avoid entangling alliances. The regimes of Europe were not based upon principles, but power. Revolutions in France, Russia and Germany replaced old tyrants with new and worse tyrants - tyrants unrestrained by Christian conscience. The...

Hello fellow Freepers. I am writing an essay defining "citizen" and the meaning of the word. This is one definition I have found... "A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation." I want to write about the differences of being an American Citizen to being an Iraqi citizen and I would like to especially concentrate on the "owing loyalty to" part of the definition. I am going to write that I think citizens of the United States should respect and be loyal to their nation considering the wonderful privileges...

The American personality might be characterized as an easygoing, sentimental, fair-minded ruthlessness. We tie yellow ribbons 'round the old oak tree at the same moment we dispatch a wing of B-52s to carpet-bomb the enemy. No murderer in the world gets as many appeals from his conviction as an American murderer. But when we have finished being fair (about the same length of time that a French murderer has to spend in prison before being released), we fry him. More recently, to show our gentle side, we have taken to killing our murderers with a painless lethal injection. Even amongst...