Free Republic

'A man is not a whole and complete man," wrote Walt Whitman, "unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on." Every generation has offered its own version of the claim that owner-occupied homes are the nation's saving grace. During the Cold War, home ownership was moral armor, protecting America from dangerous outside influences. "No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist," proclaimed builder William Levitt. With no more reds hiding under the beds, Bill Clinton launched National Homeownership Day in 1995, offering a new rationale about personal responsibility. "You want to reinforce...

The Best Speech of the Virginia GOP Convention. Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi:"Impossible is Nothing..." Click here for the video Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi "Impossible is Nothing"We had so many speakers at the Virginia Convention, we had Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity and a slate of Virginia representatives but it was not one of them that claimed the day. It was Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi, a new citizen and descendent of Palestinian refugees born in Kuwait, who brought the house down with his speech given from the heart with a clear love of his new country and its founding principles. His success...

With little fanfare, the Government Accountability Office released a document last week that points to the day when the American dream dies and is buried beneath a middle-class welfare state. You can see death coming for the American dream as surely as you can see cirrhosis coming for a drunk. We are bringing it upon ourselves—although not all Americans deserve what is going to happen. For one, our children don’t deserve it. For another, Americans who have tried to live independent, self-reliant lives don’t deserve it, either. But they are going to be dragged down with everyone else, if we...

President Obama says his proposals to crack down on corporate tax loopholes will do a lot of things, including create more U.S. jobs. "We will stop letting American companies that create jobs overseas take deductions on their expenses when they do not pay any American taxes on their profits," Obama said when announcing his proposals. In turn, Obama said, the government would offer a tax cut to companies that do their research and development in the United States. And that will "jump-start job creation," he said. Will it work? Tax policy experts and corporate lobbyists are dubious. They say that...

A true story of realizing the American dream. Katrina Pierson, an eloquent and impassioned American patriot, spoke it clearly and boldly when she stated, WE WILL RESIST SOCIALISM!

A half century ago, the United States was an industrial colossus -- a great monument to the productive potential of a free people. Moreover, with the advent of safe, abundant, and astonishingly inexpensive nuclear energy coupled with initial rapid advances in micro science and engineering, America was poised for another, even more spectacular era of advance. If this advance had been allowed to take place, Americans could have led all of the world's people into a wonderful period of progress and prosperity, orders of magnitude beyond anything the world has ever known -- and, as things stand now, may ever...

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Pat Buchanan just snatched the security blanket from conservatives and stomped on it. Contemplating the prospect of an electoral loss, some conservatives are consoling themselves by imagining that the political pendulum will soon start swinging back their way. Buchanan doesn't think so, and his very first words on the matter this morning explain why: "demography is destiny." Buchanan offered his analysis during the opening segment of today's Morning Joe. View video here.

Sharing the Poverty by: Jesse Masai, October 20, 2008 Is America’s nirvana ending soon? It is, if you believe the contents of a new book: The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy—If We Let It Happen. Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Peter Tanous; each of them keen students of Reaganomics and still involved in America’s corporate world and academia, discuss in their book the importance of continuing the pro-growth economic policies of the 1980s. A statement from the American Enterprise Institute ahead of the launch said: “The authors explain how effective economic policies instituted over the...

Pam Meister has a great interview at Family Security Matters with the plumber whose wealth Barack Obama wants to redistribute. His name is Joe Wurzelbacher. Wurzelbacher for President! Read the whole thing here. An excerpt: JW: No, there was nothing new. You know, I didn’t appreciate that, actually. PM: There’s a clip of you that’s been shown on television, and it’s all over the Internet on YouTube as well. It’s a very short clip. Do you think it accurately portrays the exchange that you had with Sen. Obama? Obviously there was more to it. JW: I haven’t seen too much...

America was an idea, a dream if you will, long before the United States of America came into being. The American Dream gave birth to the American Spirit, which was conceived in 1607 and born in 1776. That spirit had its growing pains and a few reversals but none so serious to prevent it from reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. An American was a person imbued with that spirit in pursuit of the dream on the frontier of comfort and safety. Americans were men, women and children, facing risks on a daily basis because the hazards of freedom...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 18, 2002 THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you all very much for that kind welcome. I'm here for a couple of reasons. First, I want to thank you all for your service to the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. (Applause.) I'm here to celebrate National Homeownership Month, because I believe owning a home is an essential part of economic security. And I'm concerned about the security of America. (Applause.) ... One of the things that we've got to do is to address problems straight on and deal with them...

To be an American is to be the best. Every American believes this. Their sports champions are not U.S. champions, they're world champions. Their corporations aren't the largest in the States, they're the largest on the planet. Their armies don't defend just America, they defend freedom. Like the perpetual little brother, Canadians have always lived in the shadow of our American neighbours. We mock them for their uncultured ways, their brash talk and their insularity, but it's always been the thin laughter of the insecure. After all, says University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby, a leading tracker of social trends,...

At the tiny airport on the outskirts of the city of Governador Valadares a plane draws up to the terminal building, bringing with it just a handful of passengers. On board - as with many flights these days - is a Brazilian who has decided that the "American dream" is no longer for him, after seven years away from his family. Faced with a falling US dollar and a tougher climate for immigrants generally, Francisco Silva says many Brazilians are finding it harder to make a living in the US and are either returning home or going elsewhere. Rodrigo Alves...

It's fairly popular in media and other socialistic endeavors around the world to engage in America bashing full time. I mean, we've got this war that seems to be not going to many places (just ask the relatives of Saddam's reign of terror if they're sad) and a political race that is going to boil down to selecting two candidates, Hillary and Oback, that are based on nothing more than "it's our time" and a caricature of the illusion of Camelot during the Kennedy administration which was an illusion of...well, you get my drift. An outside observer would wonder how...

It's fairly popular in media and other socialistic endeavors around the world to engage in America bashing full time. I mean, we've got this war that seems to be not going to many places (just ask the relatives of Sadam's reign of terror if they're sad) and a political race that is going to boil down to selecting two candidates, Hillary and Oback, that are based on nothing more than "it's our time" and a caricature of the illusion of Camelot during the Kennedy administration which was an illusion of...well, you get my drift. An outside observer would wonder how...

THORNTON, Colo. (CBS4) ― A well known restaurant owner, who has fed President Bush, senators, governors and mayors, is the target of a federal drug investigation in connection with what Drug Enforcement Administration agents call "a large scale Asian marijuana cultivation organization." Dan Tang, owner of Heaven Dragon restaurant in Thornton, told CBS4 reporter Brian Maass federal drug agents are "investigating me." But he denied involvement in the pot growing operation. Tang's lawyers, Michael Axt and Gene Ciancio, emphasized that Tang has not been charged with a crime but they declined to make further comment on the case. According to...

Neither markets nor governments are perfect. Both often fail, buckling under the weight of human error, bad chance, or dishonest motives. Racial discrimination is perhaps the greatest example of such failure; years of atrocious government policies have resulted in failed schools, chronic incarceration, little economic opportunity and rampant crime. But rappers face these challenges, and rather than seek the assistance of the state, they resolve to climb their way past them through the free market. Moreover, because economic growth in the free market is value-added, the rappers' pursuit of Benjamins also benefits society at large. In addition to their own...

Like most good Southern yarns, the Fred Thompson story is steeped in legend. His small-town upbringing in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., is humble and distinct on a campaign trail worn by front-runners in suits that match their polished images. In his methodical drawl, the Republican mentions his early years at every opportunity -- from his announcement speech Sept. 7 in Des Moines, Iowa, to his Oct. 15 appearance on Fox News. The details sometimes differ, but the effect is the same. "My story is an American story," Thompson, 65, said in Des Moines, "one that's happened many times across this great nation...

There's no need to ask Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, why his agency created the Defending the American Dream Summit. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. -- who actually could be president one day -- can tell you. At the NASDAQ stock market last week, Mr. Obama said the "'what's-good-enough-for-me-is-good-enough' mentality has crept into parts of the business world, while working men and women toil longer hours and still struggle to pay for health care, tuition and taxes," according to The Associated Press. "If we are honest, I think we must admit that those who have benefited from the...