Free Republic

Buying a home has become increasingly out of reach for Americans, who are grappling with a double whammy of high interest rates and surging home values. In his State of the Union address on Thursday, President Joe Biden proposed a new tax credit that would provide $10,000 to first-time home buyers. Biden is also proposing a separate $10,000 tax credit for current homeowners who sell their "starter home" in order to jump into a bigger house. That could help melt a real estate market in which homeowners who locked in low mortgage rates during the pandemic and are hesitant to...

Another Republican presidential candidate has qualified for the upcoming Republican primary debate, but chances are, you have never heard of him until now. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has qualified for the debate by securing the required number of individual donors and polling at one percent in a national poll.Burgum accomplished this feat by employing some rather unorthodox tactics: His campaign offered donors $20 gift cards for $1 donations, which raised questions about its legality. Burgum’s low-profile bid faces tough competition from more well-known candidates in the 2024 presidential race, but now, he will have an opportunity to make a...

- North Dakota’s two-term Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is expected to announce a run for president in 2024 on Wednesday. - Burgum is a longtime private-sector businessman who founded multiple businesses before overwhelmingly winning the governorship twice. - “Doug Burgum does not get into anything he thinks he can’t win,” Jim Poolman, former state legislator, vice chairman of the state’s GOP and state insurance commissioner, told the DCNF. “I think he genuinely believes he can win, and I genuinely believe he can win.”North Dakota’s governor is among the most popular in the nation, but few outside the state have...

"Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property." "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." "Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone." "Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them." "There are two principles between which there can be no compromise – liberty and coercion." "The most urgent necessity is, not that...

"The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation. The law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law becomes the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very inequity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow-citizens." —Frédéric Bastiat Genre(s): Law, Political Science Language: English

Subtitle: Collapse the Rule of Law. Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), winner of two Pulitzers, gave an assessment on the demise of nations in world history: “When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.” On closer inspection we find the unmistakable sign of a failing republic, one that lost its vision, is the collapse of just law. Just law (law) protects life and property and is consistent with the Law of Nature. When government loses sight of the purpose of...

>I’ve periodically cited the great 19th-century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, forhis very wise words about the importance of looking at both the seen and the unseen when analyzing public policy.Those that fail to consider secondary or indirect effects of government, such as Paul Krugman, are guilty of the “broken window” fallacy.There are several examples we can cite.A sloppy person, for instance, will think a higher minimum wage is good because workers will have more income. But a thoughtful analyst will think of the unintended consequence of lost jobs for low-skilled workers.An unthinking person will conclude that government spending is good...

“I, Smartphone” video is based on the essay “I, Pencil” penned by Leonard Read, in 1958, and has had a lasting impact on how we think about the market process. Why would the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics care about how a smartphone is made and why would we want you to care? Because God has given us the market process as the most powerful tool we have in a fallen world to serve each other by using our gifts. Yes, that’s right. Smartphones allow thousands of dispersed people from across the globe to bring their gifts to serve...

I’ve already confessed to man-crushes on Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and (or course) the Gipper, but it’s time for me to cross partisan and racial boundaries and announce my man-crush on Cory Booker. From the Huffington Post, here’s what the Newark Mayor had to say about the failed War on Drugs. Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker took to Reddit Sunday to criticize the war on drugs, saying it was ineffective and “represents big overgrown government at its worst.” “The so-called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or...

Via Timothy Carney, this appears to be real. Is it real or just a goof? Kevin Williamson isn’t sure and neither am I, but given that this is the same guy who fantasized recently about the Keynesian awesomeness of an alien invasion, it’s at least a toss-up. All day long I’ve felt relieved that the quake caused only very minor damage, but now suddenly I’m bummed that the Brooklyn Bridge didn’t fall into the river. Maybe we can get DHS or the NYPD to blow it up? That’s a few thousand jobs right there.

Economic lunacy abounds, and often the most learned, including Nobel Laureates, are its primary victims. The most recent example of economic lunacy is found in a Huffington Post article titled "The Silver Lining of Japan's Quake" written by Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, who has also written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post. Mr. Gardels says, "No one -- least of all someone like myself who has experienced the existential terror of California's regular tremors and knows the big one is coming here next -- would minimize the grief,...

The Tea Party is a thoroughly modern movement, organizing on Twitter and Facebook to become the most dynamic force of the midterm elections. But when it comes to ideology, it has reached back to dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas. It has resurrected once-obscure texts by dead writers — in some cases elevating them to best-seller status — to form a kind of Tea Party canon. Recommended by Tea Party icons like Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, the texts are being quoted everywhere from protest signs to Republican Party platforms. Pamphlets in the Tea Party bid for a Second American Revolution,...

(Excerpts from the introduction) I must have been forty years old before reading Frederic Bastiat's classic The Law. An anonymous person, to whom I shall eternally be in debt, mailed me an unsolicited copy. Reading Bastiat made me keenly aware of all the time wasted, along with the frustrations of going down one blind alley after another organizing my philosophy of life. "The Law" ... created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct. Bastiat's greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the...

WASHINGTON: In sponsoring the recently enacted Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act (CARS), Betty Sutton, a Copley Township Democrat, had her biggest moment as a U.S. House memeber. Better known as ''cash for clunkers,'' this federal program provides vouchers of up to $4,500 to U.S. residents toward the purchase of new, more fuel-efficient vehicles when trading in a vehicle that gets no more than 18 miles per gallon. The trade-in vehicles can be any age, and while many of them still work perfectly well, they must be scrapped. The federal dollars are in addition to a dealer-designated scrap value...

Doing no harm is the ancient tradition of Western civilization, stretching from ancient Greece to the present Judeo/Christian world. Doing Good requires a “problem” needing a remedy. Doing No Harm has no such trigger. Revolutions always crash and burn, if modeled after the French Revolution, anyhow. The people suffer, and the leaders of the revolution install themselves as all-powerful despots. The American Revolution was different, because it applied the concept of Doing No Harm. The American Revolution also contained a mind-set typified by Edmund Burke’s conservatism. See previous Freeper post. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-rlc/2205205/posts The current Revolution promulgated by the president and the...

The Proper Function of the Law And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of plunder be required of the law? Can the law -- which necessarily requires the use of force -- rationally be used for anything except protecting the rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning might against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be admitted that the true solution -- so long searched for in the area of social relationships -- is...

A common starting point for examining conservatism is Edmund Burke(b 1729- d.1797), English statesman, and notable thinker, born in Ireland. As a young man, Burke traveled extensively in France. Burke’s philosophy and world view would fill many pages. The most important thing to know is that he was a staunch opponent of the French Revolution, while strongly supporting the American Revolution. Burke’s antipathy can best be understood by learning what took place in France in the time span from 1789 to about 1845. The events that took place in the early years of this time span are commonly referred to...

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basSoph.html http://jim.com/econ/contents.html

The last section of this excerpt addresses our latest voters. The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it. Life Is a Gift from God We hold...

Frederic Bastiat Perverted Law Causes Conflict As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English...