Free Republic

As a youngster, I remember being taught to offer your seat on the bus to any elderly person. It was not unusual to see people offering to help carry a heavy or awkward box when a perfect stranger was obviously struggling with one. In today’s culture, it would not be unusual for the stranger to encounter harsh criticism instead of help, because he failed to appropriately plan the transport of the heavy box. What has produced the coarsening of attitudes in modern society? Are the crude and mean-spirited comments heard on television and read in the print media having an...

The lessons learned in youth jobs can pay off laterI vividly remember as a teenager obtaining my first job with a regular paycheck as a high school biology-laboratory assistant. It’s hard to describe how excited I was to be receiving a salary and contributing to the upkeep of my family’s household, but the biggest thrill was doing something important while at the same time acquiring many skills that would prove useful in the future. Through the kindness and interest of my high school science teachers, I gained great familiarity with many scientific techniques that enabled me to acquire a job...

When I was a teenager, my mother broke her own rule of never buying someone else’s trouble and purchased a used car. We were quite excited because it was beautiful and sleek, and it was a convertible. The salesman said the car was practically new and was the deal of the century. Before long, it was discovered that the engine was completely shot, and the car was essentially a beautiful piece of junk. The salesman did not know my mother, and in the end, gladly refunded her money and took the car back. This kind of story is, of course,...

When I was a teenager, we loved to play baseball, and in my neighborhood there were two teams. Both of them were quite good, but they were bitter rivals. It was not uncommon for fights to break out when they played each other. On one very memorable day, a very boastful team from another neighborhood challenged our neighborhood to a game. Their team was quite formidable by reputation, and neither of our teams would likely have been able to beat them. We decided to put aside our differences and use our strongest players to form one neighborhood team to take...

What do the following five things have in common? The highest corporate-tax rate in the world; high personal and small-business taxes; the Affordable Care Act; an oppressive regulatory atmosphere with intimidation rather than help from the government; and overly aggressive environmental-protection policies. These five things — along with the devaluing of the U.S. dollar by the constant printing of money backed up by nothing but reputation — are largely responsible for an extremely sluggish economy that has little hope of improvement without a drastic change in economic philosophy. I was recently talking to a couple of very well-known entrepreneurs who...

The presidential election of 2016 will be a defining moment for the nation and for the Republican Party. Not so for the Democratic Party. There's no controversy among Democrats about what America should be and what their party is about: big government, welfare state socialism and secular humanism. The only question about the Democratic presidential ticket is which welfare state socialist, secular humanist the party will nominate. The picture for Republicans is more complex, and this makes Democrats happy. They see Republican Party dissension as division and weakness, which, in their view, can only help Democrats. Key issues divide Republicans...

We have all heard the news stories about people so morbidly obese that they could not exit their house or apartment. I remember one story of a person who had to be lifted out with a crane after a wall was removed. These people are addicted to eating, and in some cases, ate incessantly even though they knew that they were jeopardizing their health and eventually, their lives. They grew so large that they were barely able to move and rendered themselves largely useless except as a food-disposal unit. This reminds me of our federal government, which was once agile...

I rec'd a petition and request for funds from a Committee to draft Ben Carson for president. Has anyone else rec'd one?

Are Americans feeling the pain?

Many can remember as youngsters doing something wrong, for which they knew punishment was deserved. In order to avoid the punishment, they would try to create a diversion of some type in order to distract the attention of parents or teachers who, hopefully, would not notice or would forget about the original infraction. The PC world of the secular progressives still uses this tactic quite effectively when they try to refocus attention on an individual or organization that opposes their agenda. This was certainly the case last week, when at the Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C., I stated that...

Dr. Ben Carson, the former director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, drew a parallel between Obamacare and “socialized medicine” and cited Communist leader Vladimir Lenin’s support for government-run health care as the “keystone to the establishment of a socialist state.” Speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Dr. Carson said that Obamacare “was never about healthcare. It was about control,” and making all Americans “subservient to the government.” He then commented on why the Democrat-dominant Congress in 2010 moved swiftly to pass the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. “And why did they...

Ben Carson Values Voter Summit 2013 FULL SPEECH. obamacare slavery. Dr. Ben Carson, a conservative commentator and neurosurgeon,Ben Carson, fresh off signing a new contributor contract with Fox News, told the crowd that Obamacare is "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." In fact, Carson said, "in a way, it is slavery, because it is making all of us subservient to the government." He went to explain that the Affordable Care Act "was never about health care, it was about control." For Carson it all comes down to a quote from Vladimir Lenin, who said, "Socialized...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Ben Carson is probably best known for his work as a neurosurgeon, but in recent months he has become a conservative firebrand and today he offered some controversial red meat to the audience at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. Carson, who is a contributor to Fox News, assailed president Obama’s health care law, saying it is akin to slavery. “I have to tell you, you know Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,” Carson said. “And it is slavery in a way because it is making all of us subservient...

A few weeks ago, I arrived from Europe at one of the Washington area’s international airports. The wait in the customs line approached an hour, because there was only one customs agent working as more than 20 of the booths stood empty. I was told by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent that this was a result of sequestration and it was designed to inflict maximum inconvenience on travelers so they would realize no part of the federal budget can be cut without horrible consequences. In similar fashion, the current government shutdown over disagreements about Obamacare has caused many “nonessential”...

Medical practice and healthcare policy are on a collision course. From an intellectual perspective, we are entering a golden age of the healing arts. The full promise of genomic medicine informing diagnosis and treatment beckons from just over the horizon. Younger physicians, just entering practice, have the ability to alleviate human suffering that no generation of doctors has ever previously known. But not so fast. The administration of health care policy, and ultimately dollars, are also undergoing a generational shift. But this shift is founded on some of the most irrational politics this country has ever seen. Future generations observing...

IRS Abuse: It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that the IRS audit of Dr. Ben Carson can't be a mere coincidence. In any powerful syndicate, the capos know who to whack without the godfather ordering it. The only way the FBI could put Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in prison was to bug an old lady's apartment in New York's Little Italy and record him giving orders to kill. But until the FBI bugs the West Wing of the White House, or the Treasury building next door, or the Internal Revenue Service's headquarters a few blocks to...

Just months after he gave a speech earlier this year that challenged America’s leadership in President Obama’s presence, Dr. Ben Carson was targeted by IRS agents who requested to review his real estate holdings and then conducted a full audit without finding any wrongdoing. “I guess it could be a coincidence, but I never had been audited before and never really had any encounters with the IRS,” Dr. Carson said in an interview Thursday with The Washington Times. “But it certainly would make one suspicious because we know now the IRS has been used for political purposes and therefore actions...

At an event in Birmingham, Ala. Monday night, former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson revealed that he had received a visit from the Internal Revenue Service following his much-noted remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year. “I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the prayer breakfast,” Carson told an audience that at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner, according to a report from Cliff Sims of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Yellowhammer News Carson’s February speech February made him a conservative darling for criticizing President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law, while...

CARSON:...the founders of the Soviet Union ran into opposition, as well. And they felt that they knew better than the people did, and if they could force upon the people their way of thinking, that the people would eventually come to accept it. And this is basically what's going on with ObamaCare. ...I thought that America was supposed to be for, of and by the people. I thought it was supposed to be people-centric and not government-centric. And I think there are a lot of other Americans who agree with me on that. And you know, if we sit by...

This is another “guest post” by The Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the State of Confusion Utopia. He was the first person of consequence to announce changes to the Bill of Rights enacted by President Obama and we are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. He is a charter member of President Obama’s Go For It Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of unicorns, for which his...