Free Republic

Editor’s note: This column was originally published Dec.. 5. On Dec. 12, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act. Page 1,163 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) states: “The land conveyed under this subsection shall be used only as a motocross, bicycle, off-highway vehicle, or stock car racing area, or for any other public purpose consistent with uses allowed under the Act of June 14, 1926 (commonly known as the ‘Recreation and Public Purposes Act’)…” You may ask yourself: What in the world does this have to do with defending America against the numerous threats we face? The...

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that state laws establishing separate public schools for Black and white students were unconstitutional, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 9-0 decision was hailed as a major victory for the civil rights of African-Americans, paving the way for the integration of the nation’s schools. But in retrospect, while there was reason to celebrate the court decision, there were also many things the Black community lost after the Brown decision.

In the responses to my “When Whites Just Don’t Get It” series, I’ve been struck by the lack of empathy some whites show for members of minority groups. So imagine if the world were reversed. Then “the talk” might go like this: “Don’t curse. It is wrong, but it’s the way the world works. And that’s why Mom and I are scared for you. With us whites in the minority, some cops are just going to see you as a threat no matter what. You’re going to get stopped by black cops, and I want you to promise you’ll never...

Feminists have been lying to women about sex for the better part of a century. It was just a couple generations ago that feminists argued that all sex between men and women constituted rape. The feminists have done a complete reversal in the last few decades. These days sex is declared a right that is both physically and emotionally meaningless. Further still, feminists argue sex is empowering for women. Because feminism relies almost exclusively on stereotypes, their argument these days is that because men get away with engaging in casual sex without consequences so should women. Instead of elevating women,...

(... Now in order for there to be a vast and vibrant market for any good and service a higher purpose has got to be served. Let’s look at the important things that we get from having all those false rape accusations out there dominating the media sphere. (1) Careers can be made! Look at the return on investment that Al Sharpton has gotten out of his profitable collaboration with Tawana Brawley. (Crystal Mangum and Mike NiFong met with less success. Read the prospectus carefully before investing!) (2) Evil men are made to live in fear! The Breitbart story has...

A history professor, writing in VEER (an arts and culture magazine published in Norfolk, Virginia), tells a startling anecdote: “A couple of years back, a student came to me for a conference, late in the semester, and asked, ‘Which came first, the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?’ Never mind that we had spent a week on both, and that he had been in attendance (physically, at any rate), for all of those sessions.” Note that the professor and the student seem equally unashamed. This is not a homeless man with a drug problem. This is an adult student taking...

The election of 2012 and now 2014 are over. The most liberal, progressive candidate in the history of American politics, with the worst record on the economy in his first term, Barack Hussein Obama, won re-election in 2012 to a second term by just under 2% of the vote. And in 2014 the vote overwhelmingly repudiated his agenda and plans. The over-riding segments of the population that enabled Obama's victory in 2012 were the Black vote (who voted for him by over 90%) and the Latino vote (who voted for him by over 70%). And they did so, absolutely against...

With business confidence at post-crisis lows (in the US and around the world), it is hardly surprising that consumer confidence would fade and at 88.7 (vs 96.0 expectations), this is the biggest miss since June 2010. It appears last month's exuberant surge/beat was anomalous as we tumble from 94.5 in October, in spite of tumbling gas prices and record high stocks... The drop was largely driven by a slide in 'hope' as expectations fell to the lowest since June. Labor, employment, and business conditions all dropped.

For the first seventy or so years of Christianity's existence, the Greco-Roman world paid it relatively little attention. There were persecutions here and there (like the one that claimed the lives of Peter and Paul). But, for the most part, it wasn’t until the second century that their pagan neighbors began to focus their attention on just how different Christians were. As Michael J. Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary wrote at The Gospel Coalition, one major difference was that “Christians would not pay homage to the other ‘gods’ ” of the Roman world. Since paying homage to these “gods” was...

According to a survey by tech giant Cisco Systems, about a fourth of professionals ages 18 to 50 would leap at the chance to get a surgical brain implant that allowed them to instantly link their thoughts to the Internet. The study was conducted on 3,700 adults working in white-collar jobs in 15 countries. Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/November17/171.html#CRwG8spidOWI60L4.99

Ditch Brooklyn, millennials. The real place to be is Des Moines, a city with a blossoming culture scene, thriving start-ups, and urban beauty.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) DES MOINES, Iowa—This is too nice a place to spawn a war cry. But if the city had one, it would be the sentiment heard across a downtown populated by baristas, tech start-up founders, musicians, and nonprofit professionals alike: "It's Des Moines against the world." Young people here know what you think of this city. It doesn't need repeating. But ambitious minds are in the process of building a new Des Moines, a tech hub in Silicon...

Have you noticed men wearing extremely long Civil War style beards lately? The so-called lumbersexual is essentially engaging in a pop-culture extreme overreaction to the metrosexual. You’ll recall the metrosexuals are generally straight men who spend an excessive amount of time on grooming and their clothes. In some ways the metrosexual mirrors certain aspects of the homosexual culture in this regard. The lumbersexual, in extreme overreaction to the metrosexual, has decided that the beard is the height of masculinity and demonstrate that masculinity in extreme manner. Both the metrosexual and the lumbersexual are just following the crowd, very few of...

Today I'm reading the Saturday New York Post, and there's still a front-page story on KK's booty exposure -days after the repellant publicity stunt- THEN the next 'big' story is what her sister thinks of what she did: 'If you've got it, flaunt it', says Kourtney... Yes, it's difficult for even the most fervent First Amendment advocate not to feel the need to deport the all the Kardashians and scrape American media clean of any reference to 'news' regarding these people, which was never anything more than chewing gum for the mind anyway... the flavor is gone in 30 seconds, then on to...

The most persecuted and victimized people in the world today are Christians in the Middle East. The perpetrators of the widespread destruction of that region's Christian community? Islamists. Middle East expert Raymond Ibrahim lays out the grim details.

Prof. Gruber’s admission that passage of Obamacare depended on the “stupidity” of the American public should come as no surprise to anyone; the man should be applauded for his candor. Examining the answers to the following questions would suggest that he was and is absolutely right. It is the dependency on the existence of these people that have kept the Democrat party in power; it is their base, it is to whom they appeal and the rest of us, while living in this country, simply pay the price for their voting habits . So: (1) how did “hope and change”...

Mormon leaders have acknowledged for the first time that the church’s founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, portrayed in church materials as a loyal partner to his loving spouse Emma, took as many as 40 wives, some already married and one only 14 years old. The church’s disclosures, in a series of essays online, are part of an effort to be transparent about its history at a time when church members are increasingly encountering disturbing claims about the faith on the Internet. Many Mormons, especially those with polygamous ancestors, say they were well aware that Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, practiced polygamy...

The 2014 midterm election was interesting for several things. First, it was a repudiation of Obama-ism only 2 years after he was re-elected. The “dense-pack” strategy (having one scandal after another take the previous one off the front pages) of Team Obama didn't work. The “independent” voters finally saw failure follow failure and realized that the things they were promised were either lies or that Obama was incompetent. Either way, they abandoned him, big time. Keeping in mind that the “Black” vote was a Republican lock for nearly a century after the Civil War, it’s very interesting that there is...

The standard portrayals of economic life for ordinary Americans and their families paint a bleak picture of stagnancy, rising economic inequality, joblessness, and low levels of economic mobility. From President Barack Obama’s speech last year at the Center for American Progress to Fed chairman Janet Yellen’s address this month in Boston, we’re getting the picture that the American Dream looks to be in bad shape. These portrayals contain an important germ of truth — today’s economy isn’t doing ordinary Americans many favors — but what is largely missing from the public conversation about economics in America is an honest...

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has claimed British towns are being “swamped” by immigrants and their residents are “under siege”, in an escalation of the emotive language being used by Tory ministers calling for a renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with Europe. In terms reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, he said on Sunday that in some areas of the UK, large numbers of migrant workers and foreign people claiming benefits should be subject to some form of restraint – or risk dominating the local population. “In some areas of the UK, down the east coast, towns do feel...