Free Republic

Who’s Afraid of Political Elites? by: Daniel Smith, September 02, 2008 Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity often scourge the “liberal elites.” Michael Savage joins them. However, as an independent, he also scourges the “country club” and “checkered pants” conservative elites. Given the popularity of their respective talk shows, it appears Americans share a disdain for political elitism. A democratic, populist, anti-aristocratic thinking pervades the general population. The foregoing reveals a great American irony, though. Simply stated, the Constitution created an elite form of government. Examine the following quotations from Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison: Hence, it clearly appears,...

Even though my country, Sweden, isn't a NATO-member, I'm beginning to feel somewhat annoyed over the behavior the Russian Air Force displays towards my dear neighbor country Norway. I think the Nordic countries, as well as the whole of "Democratic" Europe will have to fight Russian Expansionism within a generation. Russia will lose. Russia stands no chance against a united Western Europe - and if Russia does not wish to realize this, we will make them highly aware of their inferiority in terms of population size, technological know-how, production capacity and overall management skills. Compared to governments like those of...

NAJAF, Iraq - The city's first airport is weeks away from opening, but already a bigger one is talked about. Land prices are soaring. Merchants say they don't remember business ever being so good. Four years ago, Najaf was an urban battlefield, with American troops fighting Shiite militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Today, the Shiite holy city is a hot spot of a different kind, thanks to improved security, a free-for-all market economy - and a direct pipeline to the Shiite-led government.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss's demand to legalise homosexuality in the country will remain a pipedream. The Law Ministry is opposed to his demand of scrapping section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which prescribes a sentence of up to life imprisonment for those indulging in "unnatural sex". "This is a section not merely confined to gay rights, it acts as an effective deterrent against paedophiles and those with sick minds," a senior Law Ministry official said. He said Law Minister H. R. Bhardwaj would convey the ministry's stand to the cabinet that "tampering with the well laid out provisions of...

FrontPage Interview’s guest today is Hadi T. Ardestani, a Nuclear Waste Management Expert and a Marz-e Por Gohar Nuclear Issues Specialist. He is also a Marz-e Por Gohar Nuclear Committee Chairman and an M.S. Environmental Sciences and Management, Nuclear Waste Management Specialist. FP: Hadi T. Ardestani, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Ardestani: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear activities as a nuclear specialist in Marz-e Por Gohar and as the chairman for MPG's nuclear committee. FP: I would like to focus with you today on Iran and what we would call...

You have to hand it to John McCain — his campaign ads are (inadvertently) the most incisive commentary on the death of Jeffersonian democracy ever broadcast. Superficially, they lambaste Barack Obama's worshipful crowds and messianic promises that a heavenly "light will shine down" on his candidacy. But what the ads really lampoon is what Vanderbilt Professor Dana Nelson calls Presidentialism: our paternalistic view that presidents are godlike saviors — and therefore democracy's only important figures. "The once-every-four-years hope for the lever pull sensation of democratic power blinds people to the opportunities for democratic representation, deliberation, activism and change that surrounds...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008 – The United States remains steadfast in its support of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, President Bush pledged to U.S. military veterans gathered in Orlando, Fla., today. “The United States of America will continue to support Georgia’s democracy,” Bush vowed to Veterans of Foreign Wars members at their convention. Meanwhile, the U.S. military “will continue to provide needed humanitarian aid to the Georgian people,” he said. Russian troops have occupied the northern Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia for days since Russian troops and regional separatists joined forces to defeat Georgian troops during...

Come back! We were just kidding! We don’t hate you, really! So will come the supplications from the once-proud democracies of Europe. Turns out America as the world’s lone superpower might not be so bad after all. As Russian fascism re-emerges, transmogrified into what one might euphemistically call a “Corporate State,” and China’s leaders show no signs of taking their boots off of their citizens’ faces, the brave soldiers for democracy of the traditional European states are ready once again to hide behind America’s broad back. Of course, the nascent republics that budded off of the USSR sought shelter with...

Here’s a quote from the “League of Democracies” speech by McCain back in June: "Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed our nation was created for a purpose. We were, as Alexander Hamilton said, a people of great destinies.' In the Revolution, the Civil War, in World Wars One and Two, and in the many struggles of the Cold War, our forebears met and overcame threats to our nation's survival and to our way of life. They believed they had a duty to serve a cause greater than their self-interest. They kept faith with the eternal principles of...

Al-Qaeda’s global jihadHow to win the war within Islam Jul 17th 2008From The Economist print editionIn the long run, al-Qaeda will be defeated by Muslims, not foreigners. But the West can still help AMERICA’S “global war on terrorism”, now in its seventh year, has gone on longer than the second world war. Will it ever end? Optimists believe some kind of victory is in sight: Iraq is improving; al-Qaeda has been unable to stage a big attack in the West in three years; and terrorists have shown little sign of using weapons of mass destruction. Jihadists face an ideological backlash,...

Robert Mugabe and the Iranian regime Hassan Daioleslam July 15, 2008 The recent parody of presidential election in Zimbabwe has caused disgust and disappointment in the world. Mugabe's fiasco has initiated the United Nations to intervene and condemn this sham. If Mugabe had followed the Iranian regime's model of "democracy" not only his sham would have never been condemned by the UN, on the contrary, his regime could have been praised and respected. The recipe is easy and simple. Instead of becoming a presidential candidate, Mugabe could seat himself as the life term Supreme Leader. He then has to install...

The English Speaking Nations are the Greatest Nations in the World By Christopher CookLet's face it... People are rotten. Governments are rotten. Human history is mostly slaughter, oppression, and privation. True freedom—in the context of civil government that protects that freedom—is a relatively recent phenomenon. English history was made by humans, and by the governments the they empowered or suffered to rule over them. And it is a history filled with the kind of rotten behavior by people and governments that we have seen in every corner of the globe for all of human history. And yet... ...something put the...

Western flattery ignores the dark reality of Russia By Garry Kasparov Published: July 10 2008 18:21 | Last updated: July 10 2008 18:21 Recently we have witnessed a flurry of high-profile and contradictory statements on the Russian state. In a role reversal, Russia’s leaders have been abnormally candid while several prominent western politicians and pundits have lavished undeserved praise. Russian president Dmitri Medvedev was bold enough last week to state that democracy is irrelevant to the Group of Eight leading nations. It is sad to see that some of Europe’s leaders seem to agree with him. He also accidentally told...

A Rasmussen Reports poll released late last week found that only 56 percent of Americans believe in the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. 26 percent disagreed.

In Defense of the Republic Many citizens of this fine land describe it as a "democracy" in their conversation about our government and elections. There is an element of democracy in every representative form of government, but that does make a given country a democracy. The United States of America - notice the plural on what makes up America, several sovereign states - was founded with clear understanding that each of the original states - and those to be added over the years - were "Free and Independent States" (last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence). The federal government is...

A Vietnam vet friend of mine argues that maintaining a democracy requires three things: a passion for freedom, tolerance for diversity and intolerance for threats. A letter from a reader, responding to a column on Iraq's struggling democracy, suggested I write about the United States' own tortuous path -- sketching a nation that began with limited voting rights and confronted powerful factions, ethnic animosities, urban riot, rural rebellion and destructive civil war. The reader thought America's saga might help the public "understand that this democracy thing is hard." Hard indeed. Mull my friend's threefold guidance, and you'll find tricky paradox...

In the good ole days, when liberals were actually “liberal,” focused upon individual liberty above all else, and Democrats were actually “democratic” instead of dictatorial elitists focused more on not counting votes than on letting every voice be heard, the words “democratic change” had a very different meaning. The concept of democracy has since been hijacked. In the 2008 race for the White House, the Democrat candidate with the most popular support is Hillary Clinton. But somehow, the DNC nominee is Barack Hussein Obama. Not so long ago, this could not have been defined as democracy in action. It would...

The broad, sneering European-elite response to the plucky Irish vote to oppose the further centralization of governmental power in the European Union and the emerging opinion in China suggest that from Brussels to Shanghai, democracy may be losing its appeal. Democracy, broadly understood as government by the people being governed, has been the upward aspiration of Western civilization for about 1,000 years -- and of the rest of the world for about 100 years. ... The democratic urge gained further rhetorical support in the post-World War II United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21: "(1) Everyone has the...

The constitutional amendment process is a complicated and lengthy affair. This is because we cannot be certain what consequences might arise from a seemingly minor alteration of the Constitution. To be sure, exchanging the electoral-vote system for direct election would adversely impact the entire constitutional and political structure of the United States. To begin, our Constitution is dedicated to securing everybodyÂ’s rights. This requires that we be concerned not only with size, but with the character of the majorities voting our president to office. There are many ways in which our Constitution is configured to prevent simple majorities. â–ª The...

Much has been written about the George W. Bush administration's attitude toward promoting democracy. President Bush often spoke of ending tyranny in the world and the unselfish, humanitarian benefits he hoped to achieve. But he never argued, in public or private, that America should go to war in order to spread democracy. Neoconservatives, including myself, were accused of wanting to spread democracy by the sword. But I saw no evidence of that. We supported war in Iraq to defend America against threats. The Saddam Hussein regime was posing serious dangers, as the United Nations containment strategy for Iraq deteriorated. The...

Identity Necessary for Survival by: Melinda Zosh, June 09, 2008 Americans are fighting the war on terror with technology and weapons, but one man says Americans are lacking the strongest, most effective weapon—identity. Natan Sharansky, author of Defending Identity and the New York Times best-seller The Case for Democracy, spoke about the importance of attaining a sense of identity in a democratic society at the Heritage Foundation on June 3. “Identity, a life of commitment, is essential because it satisfies a human longing to become part of something bigger than oneself,” Sharanksy wrote in his book Defending Identity. Sharansky, a...

Egyptian actor Omar Sharif — best known for his film roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago — reportedly blasted U.S. policy in Iraq and said Americans are ignorant. According to The Middle East Media Research Institute, Sharif said the "East" will never have a democracy because people like him "prefer to go to the neighborhood sheik." MEMRI —a Middle Eastern press monitoring organization — posted an interview of Sharif that aired on the Al-Hayat TV network. "I lived in America for a long time. Only 10% of all Americans have a passport. In other words, 90% never left...

Turkey's parliamentary speaker on Saturday proposed a new constitution and re-establishment of an upper house of parliament, apparently with the aim of reducing the power of the country's top court. The Constitutional Court infuriated the Islamic-oriented government on Thursday by rejecting legislation that would have lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves in universities. It said the move would violate Turkey's secular principles. Speaker Koksal Toptan, speaking in a hall at the parliament, said re-installing the upper house, or Senate, would remove what he called "the pressure on the court." The Senate was abolished after Turkey's 1980 military coup on the...

The Republic of the United States of America is just about finished. If Obama controls the Oval Office then our Republic will be destroyed from inane socialist policies from within. If McCain controls the Oval Office then our Republic may also die from within due to his appeasement to Liberals. He MAY fight the good fight oversees, but he has little interest in maintaining our Constitutional Heritage state-side...witness the McCain/Feingold limitiations on 1st Amendment rights. Also, witness McCains position on the Shamnesty Bills he has tried to push through last years against the huge outcry of regular citizens. Obama believes...

Just look at Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanon, even though America did not lead the change the way it did in Iraq. And while Gaza and Beirut have fallen to the extremists, Baghdad has not. The reason is the American presence that continues to protect the democratic process. Change with support from the outside, especially the West, is a necessity. First of all, the neighbors would not let these democracies take a breath and second, democracy is a concept that emerged and evolved in the West. For the Middle East it's like importing a medicine that we didn't manufacture....

Israel Flying Aid Humanitarian Volunteers Risk Life For Other Nations By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----- May 28, 2008 ....... Sometimes with not more than just a few hours notice, the volunteer members of Israel Flying Aid find themselves on unmarked airplanes heading out from Israel for disaster stricken nations. Many of these countries have no political relations with Israel. Some declare themselves as enemies. Israel Flying Aid members sit cramped for hours on cargo planes, with their heads resting on food, water, medicine, tents, beds and emergency electric generators for those who would starve if not for...

KATHMANDU: Nepal on Wednesday scripted a new chapter in its turbulent history as the new constituent assembly abolished the 240-year-old monarchy and declared the country a "secular, federal democratic republic". The 601-member assembly met at the Birendra International Convention Centre on Wednesday evening where a motion was passed to declare the country the world's newest republic. After a series of meetings, the Seven Party Alliance agreed to table the motion of republic in the first meeting of the constituent assembly, dominated by Maoists. Out of 601 members of the constituent assembly, 572 were present during Wednesday's meeting. The motion to...

United States News Agency Launches Operations Through Web 2.0 By Robin Rotfleisch Israel News Agency New York ----- May 26, 2008 ....... The United States News Agency, an on-line, non-profit, non-governmental news site has begun operations as it begins its search for both professional editors and reporters in the US. "The Internet has thousands of sources for news but very few of them were created for the Web," said United States News Agency publisher Joel Leyden. Leyden has worked as a journalist, international media consultant and Internet SEO Web 2.0 pioneer for 25 years. He is credited for co-creating Israel's...

No Change for China by: Bethany Stotts, May 22, 2008 Has the media been overemphasizing the social importance of Chinese middle-class protests in order to advance the perception of a growing Chinese civil society? Former reporter James Mann and author Gordon G. Chang touched upon this important issue at a recent Heritage Foundation forum. “Scholars dismiss talk of China’s collapse as they downplay one concern or another, but the point is China faces these challenges all at once, not one challenge at a time,” argued Chang. These challenges include inflation, unpaid social security benefits, runaway corruption, and a deteriorating environment....

Israel Children Learn About Democracy, Peace And Israel's 60th Birthday By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----- May 20, 2008 ....... From Metulla in the north to Eilat in the south, every school in Israel is teaching their students the meaning of Israel 60th birthday. Students of all ages and grades have been assigned a variety of tasks from collecting photographs of family, making posters, creating green environmental exhibits to learning how to use free speech on radio, TV and in the newspapers. The Israel News Agency entered a secondary school today in the central Israel town of Ra'anana...

It is the essence of democracy that people should be able to decide the moral rules that govern the nature of a community. If people don't have that power, then they are living under an autocracy. True, this majority rule is not unlimited. It is limited by what the government has the power to do. Consequently the majority cannot, in general, vote to seize the homes and accumulated savings of rich people. Leaving aside exceptional cases, government cannot mandate how parents how should raise their children. These kinds of power lie outside the scope of government in a free society....

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — “Democracy is a new thing in Iraq,” said Sadi Kalif, the newly elected chairman of the South Rasheed Community Council. “When Saddam was in power, there were no elections. They just pointed to a person and said ‘You are in charge’.” After years of war and terrorist activity from insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq, the citizens of this area south of Baghdad are learning to trust the path of democracy. They are also discovering the process begins not at the top, but in their own neighborhoods. Members of the South Rasheed Community Council met in...

These are tough times for Colombia. The international left has the pro-American South American democracy in its crosshairs. Why? Because Colombia recently committed what leftists consider the cardinal sin - not only daring to resist leftists, but actually scoring a significant victory against those antidemocratic forces. The victory came at the beginning of March. Colombian military forces launched a surprise attack into Ecuador, killing Raul Reyes and several other Colombians belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - the thuggish leftwing gang that has sought to shoot its way to power in Colombia for 40 years. Reyes was...

Another 50-50 Myth Debunked by: Bethany Stotts, May 16, 2008 Do Americans live in a democracy or in a scum-ridden, corrupt regime run by elite interests? Skeptics tend to believe the latter. “Start with this reality: the Powers That Be don’t want genuine democracy...They intend for politics to be a spectator event for us, scripted by the one-tenth of 1 percent of elites who put up the controlling money,” write Jim Hightower and Susan DeMarco in their book, Swim Against the Current. While hyperbolic (as is much of Hightower’s writing), their argument exemplifies how research placing American voter turnout at...

AS A CHILD, Peter Leeson was pirate-obsessed. He cherished the ruby-eyed skull ring he got at Disney World, after riding Pirates of the Caribbean. He took up a collection of coconut pirate heads. He lapped up the pirate themes in "Goonies." And when he grew up to be an economics professor, and started studying pirate society, he found a new excuse for admiration. Pirates, it turns out, were pioneers of democracy. Presidential candidates, take note: Long before they made their way into the workings of modern government, the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on...

Almost everywhere I went last week – TV, radio, speeches – I was asked about the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state. I don't recall being asked about Israel quite so much on its 50th anniversary, which, as a general rule, is a much bigger deal than the 60th. But these days friends and enemies alike smell weakness at the heart of the Zionist Entity. Assuming Iranian President Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic fancies don't come to pass, Israel will surely make it to its 70th birthday. But a lot of folks don't fancy its prospects for its 80th and beyond. See the...

I once saw a list of analogies regarding the differing ideologies of communism, socialism, liberalism, democracy, republicanism, et al. It was a simplistic analogy concerning wolves and sheep. For example: Democracy is a system where 2 wolves and 1 sheep decide what's for dinner. Has anyone seen this list? Thank you.

The Bush administration's campaign to spread democracy in the Arab and Islamic world is in danger of imploding. The next administration will have to pick up the pieces. At a recent conference in Qatar on relations between the West and Islam, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of a dichotomy in power and perception between the two cultures, a split that extremists have tried to provoke into a "clash of civilizations." Few are more familiar with that divide than Karzai, a former mujahedeen who fought the Soviets in the 1980s and pleaded unsuccessfully with the United States not to abandon Afghanistan...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) called the Supreme Court’s decision on Indiana’s voter identification law “undemocratic.” The law requires voters to show a valid photo ID in order to obtain a ballot. “The Court’s decision places obstacles to the fundamental rights of the people, especially the ignorant, the undocumented, and the inanimate—the very people whose circumstances tend to impede their ability to register or cast a vote,” Pelosi complained. “The right to vote is a foundation of our democracy. Everyone who wishes to vote must be allowed to do so.” Pelosi predicted that the ruling would “reduce 2008 voter turnout...

How best to acknowledge the precious democratic exercise in civic responsibility we’re witnessing this Tuesday? If you’re the New York Times, you run a disingenuous story about the failings of democracy. Today’s lesson in American hubris comes from Kuwait: “Kuwait used to be No. 1 in the economy, in politics, in sports, in culture, in everything,” [Parliamentary candidate Ali al-Rashed] said, his voice floating out in the warm evening air to hundreds of potential voters seated on white damask-lined chairs. “What happened?” It is a question many people are asking as this tiny, oil-rich nation of 2.6 million people approaches...

Loving The Dictators In a recent article ["The dictators are back ... and we don’t care", The Times (London), April 27, 2008] Robert Kagan bemoans the rise of authoritarian governments in Russia and China, among other venues. His reaction is natural — and typical of the post-Soviet generation. With the victory of the Western Allies over the USSR's Communist empire in World War III (aka the "cold war"), liberal democracy über alles was the watchword of the day. Papa Francis Fukuyama told us that we were at the "end of history", didn't he? Surely, the evil idea of authoritarian rule...

2008 Milton Friedman Award by: Bethany Stotts, May 01, 2008 Yon Goicoechea, the leader of the Venezuelan Student Movement, has recently been declared the winner of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. The CATO Institute-sponsored prize of $500,000 will be presented to Goicoechea on May 15 at the Waldorf=Historia Hotel in New York City. Many credit Goicoechea with thwarting a 2007 referendum which contained 69 constitutional amendments designed to centralize unprecedented economic and political power within the government. At a March 2008 CATO briefing, Gustavo Tovar (another movement leader) said of his fellow panelist, Goicoechea, that “The leaders...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States Air Force had considered a plan to drop nuclear bombs on China during a confrontation over Taiwan in 1958 but it was overruled, declassified documents showed Wednesday. When he learned about it, President Dwight Eisenhower instead required the Air Force to initially use conventional bombs against Chinese forces if the crisis escalated, according to previously secret US Air Force history. The president's instructions seemingly astounded the Air Force top brass but the author of one of the studies released said US policymakers recognized that atomic strikes had "inherent disadvantages" because of the fall-out danger...

Friends of Israel Create Israel 60 Birthday Anniversary Website By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----- April 30, 2008 ....... Friends of Israel has created an Israel 60th Birthday celebration Website to secure global support for Israel and to provide relief for Israel charities. "The world is full of people who hate Israel for no reason other than it simply exists," says Aharon Grundman, Friends of Israel Vice President of International Marketing. "It makes no difference what Israel does, how many people this small democracy helps or how it struggles to defend itself. Israel will always remain wrong by...

Washington, D.C. –The Cato Institute has announced that Yon Goicoechea, leader of the pro-democracy student movement in Venezuela that successfully prevented President Hugo Chávez’s regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007, has been awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. * Milton Friedman Prize * Registration for the Milton Friedman Prize2008 Biennial Dinner Registration * Yon GoicoecheaYon Goicoechea Recipient of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty * Youtube video: Student demonstration in San CristobalAbout the Student Movement * Youtube video: Student demonstration in San CristobalQuotes from Yon Goicoechea * Youtube video: Student demonstration in...

In the aftermath of World War II, statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic recognized that the defense of freedom would require the active engagement of a new generation of leaders. The result was the Atlantic alliance. In the six decades that followed, this alliance helped the West prevail against Soviet communism and ensured the advance of democracy from the Atlantic to the Urals. Today we may be tempted to bask in our achievements and wax nostalgic about all we have been through. But this is no time for nostalgia. At this moment, our alliance now finds itself threatened on...

.... And so it was sadly that I listened to the Dalai Lama pronounce last week that if the violence didn't cease he would have no option but to quit being Tibet's spiritual leader in exile. Whoa! I'll bet that really gave those Chinese generals a couple of sleepless nights! To all those out there with the "Free Tibet!" stickers, here are a few facts that will help the world make sense: 1. There will always be bad people. 2. Bad people don't care about hurting good people. Appeals to shame, empathy and guilt don't work on them. That's why...

Noah Feldman is one of the leading public intellectuals in America today. A Harvard Law School professor, Feldman is the author of a trio of stimulating books on democracy and religion: "Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem – And What We Should Do About It"; "What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building"; and "After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy." Feldman's new book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, is a thoughtful meditation on the history, ideals, and revival of sharia – the divine law governing Muslim society. "This movement toward the...

There's an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen - and it's accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly ("Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?") concludes that "In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights." The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy. I disagree with that conclusion. Today's Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than...