Free Republic

At the end of World War II, the Allies decided that they would hold war crimes trials. The declared basically the complete Nazi government to be a criminal orginization, this included members of the Nazi party, the SS,both the Waffen-SS and Allegemeine SS, Gestapo, SD, etc. All members of such organizations were to be considered war crimnals until proven otherwise. As in many cases, the victor makes the rules after a war is ended. In todays United States are we seeing another criminal organization in action? Is the Biden administration the results of criminal activity? Are it actions now that...

History is an interesting thing. If a journalist doesn't want you to hear about it, they simply don't have to report it. Well what happens if a historian omitted facts in the same manner? What if, let's say for example, the Underground Railroad consisted of slaves escaping from a state deep in the throws of slavery northward to a different state and that state had abolished slavery? Well of course the historian wants you to focus on the slave continuing their journey up to Canada, but the reality is that not all continued on their course. What if many slaves...

Before when free-soil men invoked the right of revolution in defense of their political rights, proslavery men condemned them for defying the legitimate government. But proslavery men feared the loss of their right to own slaves as much as free soilers feared the loss of the right to exclude slavery. At Hickory Point, [Kansas] a squabble over land claims ignited these political quarrels. A settler named Franklin M. Coleman had been squatting on land abandoned by some Hoosiers, who subsequently sold the claim to Jacob Branson, another Hoosier. In late 1854, when Branson informed Coleman of his legal claim and...

Mark Twain wrote with enormous sentiment about a great patriotic movement, as “a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun.”  Thus is the receiving line of the disaffected for Donald Trump, of whom legend and song shall be duly recorded in history. Leading in the polls, standing tall above all the other GOP candidates, indeed above Her Majesty Hillary Clinton, whose shine has turned to a patina in the manner of copper left in the rain, Trump’s supporters wax heroic about their leader, ready to defend him with their honor for the glory to come. Then home from the war, bronzed heroes,...

Reverend Mother Dawn Frankfurt just finished leading her congregation of St. James Episcopal Church of Wichita, Kansas in celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus. Carols were sung, liturgies were performed and communion taken, all in the name of the miracle baby who was sent from Heaven to save the world. The congregation was invited to contemplate and rejoice over the mysterious miracle of God incarnate, formed in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, giver of life. Perhaps the participants in St. James’ Christmas Eve service had warm and fuzzy feelings as they saw a customary Christmas...

Economic history, my collegiate academic fascination, focuses upon the adaptation of societal institutions to technical innovations. The American legal history of the right to keep and bear arms can be traced back to the deposition of King James II, who prevented Protestants from owning firearms. The English constitutional right that “Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law” then served as the model for the American Bill of Rights. Here in the States, however, firearms were not stored in a castle “keep” with villiens, as part of their required service, bearing...