Free Republic

<p>Greece and its principal creditors—the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund—should acknowledge that Athens will never be able to repay the €131 billion it owes, write down its debt and let the Aegean nation exit the euro gracefully.</p>

This is a disturbing, or perhaps better described as heartbreaking story which popped up this weekend and set off all sorts of alarm bells for me. NBC News is featuring the tale of a child named Lia (until recently, Liam) who is being fully encouraged and supported by his parents on a “journey” to become a girl. The child is ten years old and began this “trip” at the age of five. We moved from Indiana to New Hampshire when Lia was 4. She was still wearing boys’ clothes and playing with trucks through preschool, but she really wanted girl...

Investigative journalist Brad Friedman has observed that America is moving in a progressive direction, despite the mainstream media’s “center-right nation” shibboleth. Despite the obstacles that have been placed in the pathway of progressives, Friedman is correct beyond dispute. Think back to a decade ago. Same-sex marriage was considered an abomination in large parts of the country. Christian fundamentalists were flexing their muscles as never before. Rush Limbaugh and Fox dominated the American media landscape. The Bush administration had launched a war on climate science. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was gay-bashing his way to national prominence. Today, marriage equality is the...

If you’re following any of the various media outlets this morning, you’re probably aware that the U.S. Supreme Court has just extended gay marriage to all 50 states. The Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry nationwide, in a historic decision that invalidates gay marriage bans in more than a dozen states. Gay and lesbian couples already can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s ruling on Friday means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage. The outcome is...

The Supreme Court decision Friday making homosexual marriage not only legal but giving it a status superior to heterosexual marriage* was ominous (never mind that the lead defendant's name sounded like a rank in the Wehrmacht). In his majority opinion, one which cavalierly overthrew well over 6,000 years of human history in the service of Kennedy's vigorously, if vicariously, twitching nether regions, Kennedy laid out a road map for the eradication of the legal ability to oppose homosexual marriage. This is the key section: “Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue...

For marriage-equality activists, Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage rights for LGBT couples was an occasion for good cheer. But even as the pink-label Champagne flowed and the sounds of a long-sought victory throbbed inside New York's historic Stonewall Inn, their transgender brothers and sisters marched on, chanting in the sun just blocks away. Marriage equality is all well and good, Elliott Fukui said, but it was no time to party for dozens of trans activists. Not even close, he said. "The battle for trans rights has been neglected by the mainstream LGB movement," said Fukui, program co-ordinator for...

Welcome to the age of vanity politics and campaigns-for-hire. What would our founders make of this nightmare? Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt. From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth. Corruption did not have to stoop to...

In 16th-century England, the age of consent was set at 10 years old in an effort to protect young girls from sexual abuse by adult men. In 1875, parliament raised the age of consent to 13; in 1885, it upped it to 16. Now, a leading public health advocate has proposed that the United Kingdom bring the age down again in light of the high proportion of British adolescents who are having sex—with one another—before they’re legally capable of granting consent. Lowering the age of consent to 15 (where it stands in Sweden) or 14 (where it’s set in Germany...

I thought Scott Walker was a pretty cool guy when I saw him pull up on a Harley at Joni Ernst’s Roast & Ride a few weeks ago in Boone, Iowa. But he just did something that wasn’t so cool in reacting to the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage — that is if you care about the Republicans winning the 2016 general election. Walker called for a Constitutional amendment to let states define marriage. Now I’m sure the Wisconsin governor has strong feelings about traditional marriage and, although I’m on the other side on this one, I completely respect his...

~~Well-intended forgiveness has been seized on by the media and those in power as an excuse to ignore white supremacy~~ Unfortunately, forgiveness, that element of moral sanctity which facilitates assuaging of grief, has morphed into a barrier obstructing the path to justice and accountability in the United States — a place weakened by the ubiquitousness and insidiousness of racism. Although it’s tough to direct a critical lens at the concept of forgiveness when the situation involves grieving family members tearfully addressing an expressionless, depraved killer who isn’t even asking for it, for posterity’s sake this must be done. What happened...

America has a case of Obama Blues. The word’s out that we’re a nation of bigots. Racism is in our DNA. So says our African-American President. I asked Mohammed if he agreed. “Sure,” he said. Mohammed was driving the New York cab. A moment later he shut the bulletproof partition that separates cabbie from passenger – to protect the drivers or the passengers? The President had said that we have been racists since the beginning of time, and that there is no cure in sight. I might suggest that a new President would be a wonderful cure. A few days...

In an unsurprising but still disappointing decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Obergefell vs Hodges that states may not define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Many Catholics, along with other people of good-will who believe marriage is intrinsically related to men, women, sex, and children, are asking, “What next?” Let me offer a proposal: Go back to the basics.How We Got HereIn the span of twenty years, redefining marriage to include homosexual unions went from being opposed by both political parties and a supermajority of the American electorate to being a position that...

I just love it when someone slips up, and tells us country folk what’s really being planned for us. Rural cleansing is the purposeful removal of rural citizens from the countryside and the relocation of rural populations into urban areas. Many public officials and media pundits scoff at the mere suggestion that rural cleansing is taking place, but the problem, you see, is that there are people who have inadvertently left tell-tale clues we can use to piece together things for ourselves. One of the most startling clues I’ve run across lately comes from a July 1, 1998 newspaper article...

As the looming deadline for a final deal approaches, it is not surprising that the Iranian mullah's heads are spinning like centrifuges praising Allah for an unthinkable US enrichment of a 'historic deal' that could pave the way for them to build nuclear weapons. Given the Obama administration capitulation to massive nuke concessions, President Barack Obama's insistence on striking a very flawed nuclear arms deal with the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism reeks of a major cover up. The most incriminating aspect of Team Obama's deception is the mainstream media lapdogs' broadcasting reports of dangerous disinformation concerning the president's...

Without question, the Supreme Court’s decision to impose homosexual marriage as a constitutional right is disappointing. There was a time when the Court rightly bestowed a great respect for America’s Christian heritage and to the Creator on which the Declaration of Independence was based. Sadly, those time are passed. As Christians, we know God, in His great wisdom, established the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman. Not even the Supreme Court can change that.Because of judicial activism, Christian ministries can and should take steps to protect their religious freedoms. No longer can even churches believe...

**SNIP** Now here is the kicker, as the writer articulately brings to light: “By using the Constitution in such a manner, the Court argues that the Due Process Clause extends “certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy” accepted in a majority of states across the state lines of a handful of states that still banned the practice. The vast majority of states are “shall issue” on the matter of issuing concealed carry permits, and enjoy reciprocity with a large number of other states. My North Carolina concealed carry permit, for example, was recognized yesterday as being valid in...

The destruction of the most fundamentally important institution of a civil society has been anointed by five pagan shamans on the Unites States Supreme Court, but let me get back to that in a minute. There has been considerable sentiment lately, and some of it backed with sound logic and sober forethought, that the progressive experiment could be in its death throes. The thinking goes something like this. Obama has poisoned healthcare, the economy, and race relations. Then there's other fiascos like the Rainbow Jihad against kindly cake baker and florists, Bruce Jenner’s gender-bending, and most recently the bizarre purge...

Iknoor Singh, a student at Hofstra University, thought he had found his calling when he attended a campus meeting of the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. But when he tried to sign up, he was told that he would have to shave his beard, cut his hair and remove his turban. When he asked for a religious accommodation as a Sikh, the Army refused, saying that these articles of faith would undermine unit cohesion and morale, readiness, health and safety, and discipline. ..................................................... Yes, religious freedom needs protection. But religious liberty doesn’t mean the right to discriminate or to...

Has our nation traded the rule of law for the rule of lawyers? Critics would say so. And this week’s Supreme Court rulings — most notably Friday's 5-4 decision on faux marriage — could be their Exhibit A. Friday's ruling, stating that same-sex couples have a “right” to “marry” in all 50 states, went down precisely as critics had predicted — and feared. Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the Court’s four most liberal judges — Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer — in the promotion of faux marriage; he also wrote the majority opinion. Justices Antonin...

The judicial decision to uphold all of the president's health-care subsidies may be very disappointing, but the economics of Obamacare are far worse than whatever constitutional mistakes have been committed by the Supreme Court. The economics of Obamacare are very bad. The law is inflicting broad damage on job creation and new-business formation. It ruins job incentives by making it pay more not to work, thereby intensifying a labor shortage that is holding back growth and in turn lowering incomes and spending. And across-the-board Obamacare tax increases are inflicting heavy punishment on investment — right when the U.S. economy desperately...