Free Republic

For the past few centuries, the Western world has witnessed a contest of historic visions. On the one side was the dream of the beautiful collective. Human progress was a one-way march toward socialism. People would liberate themselves from religion, hierarchy and oppression. They would build a new kind of society where equality would be the rule, where rational planning would replace cruel competition. On the other side was . . .

Is the election of a pro-business, pro-American, growth-oriented prime minister in the world's largest democracy good news or bad news for the world's oldest democracy? We in that oldest democracy are currently governed by the Democrats, a party that has more in common with the defeated Congress party in India than with the victorious Bharatiya Janata Party. You could tell that the White House was less than overjoyed at the election of Narendra Modi when the spokesman recited boilerplate praise of a "free and fair election." Are there sensitivities regarding this particular small-government guy? Sure. India is not Indiana. The...

Until We Learn to Be Sovereign, the Illegitimate State Will Continue.A recent editorial column here at the PanAm Post spoke of the failures of the opposition parties in Venezuela and their culpability in the collapse of their country. The article raises some very important questions about democracy itself. Democracy, after all, is a very good system, and can produce some very positive results. However, it is also a system fraught with incredible danger. Democracy represents the will of the people, but it also represents their whims, their fears, and their prejudices. The Historical Legacy: False Promises, Division, Failure It was...

...and also Russian Orthodox church offices. Firefox, Thunderbird, WebMaker, etc.

We're better than those damned Russians and their Putin; we have democracy! Well, maybe not. Quote: Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. Lots of big words in that paragraph. Let's distill it down -- the argument presented is that America is really no different than...

The startling thing about the books academics typically dismiss as relics of the past is the uncanny manner in which they anticipate the present. “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1848. “Democracy attaches all possible value to each man while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number.” “Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” The de Tocqueville quote was resurrected nearly a century later by Friedrich A. Hayek in The...

The National Popular Vote effort, which could see the 14 states with the largest populations decide the presidency, is more than halfway to its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the Constitution. Now 10 jurisdictions possessing 136 electoral votes are part of the plan, just over half of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the National Popular Vote interstate compact into effect. The NVP effort is fully partnered with a George Soros-funded election group, as WND was first to report. The group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, received original seed money in 1997 from the...

How did our relations with Russia go so far wrong so quickly? The Obama administration hoped to have a “reset” of our bilateral ties by wiping the slate clean. In giving the Russians a reset, we were showing a willingness to let bygones be bygones. Or, in their case, let Putin’s 2008 invasion of neighboring Republic of Georgia be forgotten. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. But the trouble with our Russian relations goes further back. After the collapse of Communism and the largely peaceful dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, it seemed...

n most states, elected officials, usually state legislators, are responsible for assessing what education funding in the state should be and will be. Recently, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that in fact, the judicial branch has jurisdiction over this crucial area of the budget. Although the Court didn’t answer the broad question of what constitutes the “adequate school funding” requirement in the Kansas State Constitution, it did say that lawmakers must fund schools equally. And while this ruling will have some impact on present school funding formulas, the Court made sure to clarify that it has jurisdiction over what counts...

The human race is on the brink of momentous and dire change. It is a change that potentially smashes our institutions and warps our society beyond recognition. It is also a change to which almost no one is paying attention. I’m talking about the coming obsolescence of the gun-wielding human infantryman as a weapon of war. Or to put it another way: the end of the Age of the Gun. ........................................................... The human race is on the brink of momentous and dire change. It is a change that potentially smashes our institutions and warps our society beyond recognition. It is...

As the number of seriously ill patients whose access to treatment has been impeded by the Affordable Care Act continues to increase, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insists that “the actual number affected represents only a tiny minority of the population.” “No plan can comfortably accommodate every single person,” Sebelius pointed out. “Trade-offs are inevitable. We can’t let ourselves be distracted by the pitiful stories of a handful of unfortunate victims of rare diseases. The vast majority are receiving the coverage we deem essential.” Providing the “vast majority” with contraceptives, mammograms, and sex change surgery while short-changing the...

For most casual observers, whether Catholic or not, the main battle lines within American Catholicism today seem self-evident. The cleavage overlaps perfectly the divide between the political parties, leading to the frequently-used labels “liberal” and “conservative” Catholics. We have Nancy Pelosi and Andrew Cuomo representing the Left, and Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback aligned with the Right. Mainstream opinion has classified Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as honorary Republicans, and Pope Francis as a Democrat (hence, why he is appearing on the covers of Time and Rolling Stone Magazines). This division does indeed capture real battle lines, but...

Arab MK Ahmed Tibi said on Tuesday that he walked out of the Knesset plenum during Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech because of Harper’s “bias”. Speaking to Evan Solomon of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Tibi claimed Harper had described Israel in “a very unbalanced way.” He also claimed that Israel is a “selective democracy” and that Arabs are “suffering discrimination.” Canada’s foreign policy toward Israel is “biased, non-balanced, and that’s why Canada has a very marginal role in the Middle East,” Tibi charged. He left the plenum “to say that we are very much unsatisfied with the remarks...

How Democracies Perish, Deathbed Edition By Daren Jonescu AMERICAN THINKER, June 18, 2013 http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/06/how_democracies_perish_deathbed_edition.html At the heart of this work, Revel details "The Tools of Communist Expansion," among which the most relevant for understanding our current situation comes in Chapter 16, "Ideological Warfare and Disinformation." The profound simplicity of Revel's nuts and bolts account of totalitarianism's Cold War advance, far from being obsolete, actually sheds light on a defining feature of today's progressive ascension: the perverting of the free press into a propaganda ministry.

Found this gem from Dec 2008 on wimp.com. Good explanation of what kind of government we have, if we can keep it. Mash here >> The American form of government.

Tallahassee’s political establishment has repeatedly blocked legislative votes on medical marijuana and will ask the Florida Supreme Court Thursday to follow suit and keep the issue away from state voters in 2014. Led by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, opponents have raised a host of objections to the proposed state constitutional amendment, which they say could lead to de facto “unfettered” marijuana legalization under the guise of compassionate medicine. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/04/3796894/high-court-hears-medical-marijuana.html#storylink=cpy

Anti-government protesters in Thailand cut off electricity to the prime minister's office compound on Thursday while their leaders met with businesspeople to explain why they want to oust the caretaker government before upcoming elections.

The gangster state of North Korea became a nuclear power in 2006-2007, despite lots of foreign aid aimed at precluding just such proliferation -- help usually not otherwise accorded such a loony dictatorship. Apparently the civilized world rightly suspected that if nuclear, Pyongyang would either export nuclear material and expertise to other unstable countries, or bully its successful but non-nuclear neighbors -- or both. The United States has given billions of dollars in foreign aid to Pakistan, whose Islamist gangs have spearheaded radical anti-American terrorism. Since a corrupt Pakistan went nuclear in 1998, it has been able to extort...

Recent statements from various leaders within the Syrian rebel movement show that the rift between secularists and Islamists remains a key issue. A video released by a leading Islamist faction shows Islamist military leader Abu Bilal al-Homsi exhorting his followers to reject the largely secular Free Syrian Army, led by Salim Idris. According to Al-Homsi, Idris has said that the Free Syrian Army under his command is fighting for "democracy, secularism, communism, and the rights of minority groups", including Syrian Druze. Rebels must fight not for democracy or rights, but for Islam, Al-Homsi declared. From the beginning, the purpose of...

The assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution voted on Sunday against an article requiring parliamentary elections to be held before presidential elections, raising uncertainty about the country’s political transition timetable. Thirty-three members of the 50-member assembly named by interim President Adly Mansour voted against the article, meaning they will have to redraft it. … The disputed articles included one obliging the state to ensure fair representation of Christians, youth and peasants in parliament, and one regulating the coming parliamentary vote by stipulating it be held with two-thirds of the seats allotted to individual candidates and one third to party lists—reversing the...