Free Republic

I recently read the new biography of Trotsky by Oxford don Robert Service, published in 2009 by Pan Books. It is well-written and surprisingly interesting. The book does a great public service in describing the life of the actual Trotsky, whose previous “biographies” were little more than hagiographies written by his toady worshippers (people like Isaac Deutscher). The last time that I had taken any interest in Trotsky was when I was a teenager and had fleeting delusions of believing in “socialism.” Reading the new book as an adult and as an economist, I found it a useful opportunity to...

Urging that “we break free of the archaic notions of our nation's so-called 'Founding Fathers,'” President Barack Obama launched his second term with a stirring call to “update our concepts to fit our modern circumstances.” The President maintained that “the Founders' original idea that 'liberty' means freedom from government abuses and usurpations has no relevance today. Our government does not usurp our rights. The people elect their rulers and expect them to create the kind of rights appropriate to the world we live in now.” “How much liberty does a person have if he lacks the will or ability to...

President Obama’s inaugural address was eloquent and moving in parts. It was also deeply partisan and polarizing, something that is unusual for a day normally devoted to unity and common purpose. But not in Barack Obama’s America. In his inaugural speech he did what he seemingly cannot keep himself from doing: portraying himself and his followers as Children of Light and portraying his opponents as Children of Darkness. You are either with Obama–or you are with the forces of cruelty and bigotry. In Obama’s world, there is no middle ground. He is the Voice of Reason; those who oppose him...

In his second inaugural address, Obama makes clear that it’s fight night in America. snip Indeed, Obama’s second inaugural address was a liberal wet dream: It pressed all of the Left’s erogenous zones: • Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Obama vowed not to change or reform them — even though they are driving us toward financial insolvency, and even though they provide workers with a relatively lousy return on their investment. • “Climate change”? It is real, and it must be addressed — now! • “Sustainable (read: green) energy”? “America cannot resist this transition. We must lead it” — now!...

In the libertarian sci-fi classic, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," Robert A. Heinlein describes a successful revolution of the individualistic, free-market-oriented residents of the Moon against the Earth's tyrannical big government. The ins and outs of agitating and organizing the masses to fight the oppressive Authority feel just as realistic as the finer points of everyday life in the underground Lunar cities of the future. The proposed revolutionary scenario could even serve as a workable model for similar real-life endeavors, if only the renowned futurist author hadn't neglected to factor in the immanent function of any oppressive regime: systemic...

Most modern-day leftists in Western countries have abandoned the idea of a violent revolution, having replaced it with "the long march through the institutions" as part of the culture war to transform the society through cultural hegemony. Instead of commanding firing squads, they play mind games of manipulative illusions, in which the demonization of dissent plays a crucial role. The basic premise hasn't changed: as much as the statists want you to love them, they want you to hate their opponents even more. Until a time when political opposition can be eliminated completely, having opponents can still be useful: you...

This is...about a coordinated effort by about 36 different interest groups with reported revenues of no less than $1.69 billion, pledging millions of dollars to work together to attack conservative supporters and organizations, to intervene directly in Democratic politics, to push for filibuster reform to better enable a push through their agenda without any input from the opposition, and expanding "voting rights" and fighting voter registration laws to further grease the skids for their legislative agenda. 1. Who belongs: Here are a few of them: ...the AFL-CIO, the Center for American Progress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common...

In "Liberalism and Social Action" (Excerpts only), John Dewey explains the following: The idealistic philosophy taught that men are held together by the relations that proceed from and that manifest an ultimate cosmic mind. It followed that the basis of society and the state is shared intelligence and purpose, not force nor yet self-interest. The state is a moral organism, of which government is one organ. Only by participating in the common purpose as it works for the common good can individual human beings realize their true individualities and become truly free. The state is but one organ among many...

We are being played; it's time we learned the game. Conservatives have their Constitution. Progressives have their Narrative. The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it. One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms. The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice. They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at...

<p>Our current national argument over taxes, debt and the fiscal cliff is nominally about balancing spreadsheets and the arcana of economic formulas, but it’s actually about race. And the fact that those on either side of the budget conversation—both Democrats and Republicans—will not acknowledge as much prevents us from having an honest conversation about what’s at stake.</p>

Thirty years have passed since French president François Mitterrand launched Europe’s last great wave of nationalisation, seizing the banks, insurance groups, arms makers and steel industry in the culminating debacle of the Collectivist era. The whole world has been living in an era of privatisation ever since. So it seems like a strange step back in time to hear France’s minister of industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, threatening a “temporary public takeover” of ArcelorMittal’s steel operations in the Lorraine plateau – purportedly to save the blast furnaces of Florange and their 2,500 workers, so sacred in the Socialist Party catechism. It...

Looking at the polls, this presidential election season is poised to give birth to the most racially polarized electorate in U.S. history. Whites are backing Mitt Romney in historic numbers, while Obama is garnering historic levels of support among blacks, Latinos and Asians. While the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has the president in a dead heat with his GOP opponent, recent surveys show wide swings in support based on race. In other words, it looks like white voters versus everyone else. Looking at a composite of polls, Obama’s white support averages 37.9 percent, ranging from 35 percent to 41...

Annika Eriksson, a long-time Swedish chef revered for her school lunches, has been squelched. Has she made errors? Are her meals contaminated? Has the quality of her ingredients slipped? No, none of the above. The trouble stems purely from the fact that her meals are too good. Yes, you read that right. She’s exceeding expectations. She bakes fresh bread every day. She offers 15 different vegetables at lunchtime. She knows it pleases the students to have choices. This is her crime because, you see, other schools don’t have the same benefits in the Falun district in Sweden. (This is called...

President Obama inadvertently reveals his true post-Marxist colors at every turn, but perhaps nowhere more starkly than inhis irresistible impulse to look Americans inthe eye and say, "This isn't about you." What is sometimes (correctly) described as his coldness is, more precisely, the lifelong leftist's pathological habit of converting concrete human lives into an abstract, "composite" humanity which, tohis corrupted intellect, seems more real than life itself. Examples of this reality-defying collectivist mechanism abound in Obama's public statements. Consider the first question of the second presidential debate. A twenty-year-old college student, Jeremy Epstein, asks, "What can you say to reassure...

A country and a people can be measured in its breath and its depth. A government can either choose breadth of control or depth of control—but it cannot have both. Breadth of control allows for governing a large area, but with only limited control and influence over those who live there. Depth of control allows for extensive control over the lives of a population, but such control requires government infrastructure of equal depth that is difficult to sustain or project over a large territory. One is a mile wide and an inch deep. The other is a mile deep and...

Statements this past week by both the President and Vice-President that many are persuaded are gaffes were defended by Press Secretary Jay Carney. “President Obama's assertion that 'we don't believe anyone is entitled to success in this country' is not a defense of a failed economic policy as some are claiming,” Carney said. “It's a reaffirmation of the President's belief in the essential equality of all people. After all, is it really fair for some to succeed while others fail? Shouldn't government strive to level the playing field to prevent the more able or lucky from rising above others?” “Is...

Unable to answer a simple question regarding the size of the national debt during an interview on David Letterman’s talk show, President Obama tried to assure viewers that it isn’t important. “I can’t put my finger on the precise amount,” Obama said. “How about a ‘ballpark’ estimate?” Letterman asked. “Well, I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter,” the President replied. “You see, mostly this is money we owe ourselves. I mean, Americans owe the debt and Americans own the debt. In effect, paying the debt is like taking money out of your right pocket and putting it into your...

Why isn't this on the news? Would they report it if he said he was a socialist? Well I guess not because even after his redistribution of wealth video surfaced yesterday, the corrupt media did not report it. We are going to have to figure out a way to make people understand the media needs to go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsobm33ATC0&feature=player_embedded

What happens when a free people decides it was never free to begin with? What happens when a nation decides that individual liberty is a myth, that the endless vicissitudes of life form an impenetrable wall to success, that we are all controlled by outside forces? We despair. We turn to the power of the masses. This is where almost half of America currently stands. It came out this week that Mitt Romney made this claim back in May, and he was exactly right. That doesn't mean that every American who doesn't pay federal income tax -- veterans, recipients of...

Obama calls for 'democracy with a small d'; Pushes society based on collectivism, 'common good' - YouTube Video Wealth redistribution, collectivism, unions . . . no, he's definitely not a communist. NEW YORK – A 1995 video depicts Barack Obama calling for “democracy with a small ‘d,’” while pushing a society based on collectivism and “common good.”In the video unearthed by KleinOnline, Obama hails unions and collective bargaining as encapsulating the societal “common good” of which he speaks.Obama urges society to collectively move “forward” – a word that would later serve as his 2012 campaign slogan.Obama was speaking in...