Free Republic

Many of my columns speak highly of the wisdom of our nation's founders. Every once in a while, I receive an ugly letter sarcastically asking what do I think of their wisdom declaring blacks "three-fifths of a human." It's difficult to tell whether such a question is prompted by ignorance or is the fruit of an ongoing agenda to undermine American greatness. Let's examine some facts about our founders and slavery. At the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, slaves were 40 percent of the population of southern colonies. Apportionment in the House of Representatives and the number of electoral...

Late in the evening on November 4, 2015, Dr. Ben Carson sat down to his computer, as he reportedly does regularly, to answer questions that had been sent to him on Facebook during the day. His November 4 post had the desired effect. With 300,000 likes and 180,000 shares (at this writing), read aloud by major talk show hosts from Rush Limbaugh in Florida to Joe Walsh in Chicago, this post is the dictionary definition of “going viral.” So as a politician, he deserves congratulations; the post was effective. But as an honest statesman, it fell short. The Question of...

My favorites are Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Its not uncommon for a progressive to rattle off the phrase "The Founders could not have foreseen" - and fill in the blank. The Founders couldn't have forseen x, they couldn't have foreseen y, and so it goes. Well, Mr. Progressive they did foresee you and your tyrannical schemes. This is illustrated by James Madison himself, at the Convention on June 26th, 1787: We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to...

When is it OK to break the law? When can you disobey the authorities? Should you be punished for meaning well? Before reflexively answering, let’s imagine some possibilities. Say the government came looking for spies hiding in your house. Is it OK for you to have allowed the spies to hide there? Isn’t it even worse if you cover up by denying the spies are hiding? Should you compound your treason by helping the spies escape? Next hypothetical: Should you disobey a law legitimately enacted and legally upheld by the highest court in the land? Last hypothetical: Do you think...

They all pledged their “lives, fortunes and sacred honors,” and it was more than just an idle boast. The Founding Fathers were committing treason against the most powerful empire that the world to date had ever seen. It was also their Mother Country, to which many of their friends, family, and neighbors were still loyal. And while they certainly, in the words of Patrick Henry, “made the most” of their treason, the idea that they would establish the most free and powerful nation in the history of mankind was not the most likely outcome. So in singling out these 7...

There’s nothing more American than Fourth of July cookouts, fireworks — and political speeches, especially as we enter another presidential campaign season. For politicians, nothing suits the holiday better than invocations of our nation’s Founders. Not all such exclamations are cut from the same red-white-and-blue cloth, however. Pay close attention as the candidates praise the “Spirit of ’76,” and you’ll see that they’re not taking a break from partisan rhetoric, but engaging in politics at its most elemental level. Here’s a guide to some founding-related phrases and what they really mean today. “Founding Fathers” Nothing says “I’m a conservative” more...

This post is a long time in the making, and spurred on by the significance of today's date (July 4th!) and a recent post made by ETL about the Revolutionary War series (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3307499/posts). (I'm a first-time poster of a thread, so hopefully got this down right!) While I’m busy watching the very first episode of this excellent historic series, on this night of July 4th, 2015, as fireworks go off in the distance, and seeing graphical representations of events leading up to our own Revolutionary War (such as the turning of Franklin’s political sensibilities toward the American cause while in...

It was the first time in history that a country was based upon something other than place or ethnicity. The Founding Fathers built upon the thoughts and actions resulting from the Reformation and Enlightenment, deliberately crafting a government legitimized by a popular mandate. No longer did someone rule by Divine Right. Religion and the Divine were not possessed by a Chosen aristocracy and the coercive power of government was not used to impose it upon the populace. Political influence and economic success could be attained by other means than birth. For the first time in history, one could use hard...

In his inaugural address to Congress President Washington said, “It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States…No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the...

Greetings and salutations on this most patriotic of days. I hope that this Independence Day finds you all safe and well, with plenty of time to spend with friends and family, as well a chance to contemplate the past and future of our country. Given the importance which I’m sure most of you reading this place on the Constitution of the United States and its welfare going forward, perhaps we could start by revisiting the words of one of its chief proponents in the days of the Founding Fathers. Let’s hear from Alexander Hamilton in the opening volley of one...

When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under...

Yesterday was the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede. The “Great Charter” (actually, its full name was Magna Carta Libertatum, or Great Charter of Liberty) was the first codification in English history of the principle that the power of government had limitations. I attended a mini-conference to commemorate it on Sunday night and yesterday morning. Hosted by the American Freedom Alliance, in Bellaire (near the UCLA campus), it was an intellectual feast, with talks and panels from historical scholars and law professors (including Amy Peikoff, an Objectivist atheist who declared Ted Cruz to be the...

If Scott Cost thinks that Ted Cruz is scary because he declared in a speech, “our rights don’t come from man. They come from God Almighty,” then he would really be frightened of the Founding Fathers. Enshrined in our Declaration of Independence are terms such as the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” referring to God’s law written on the heart and God’s law revealed in the Bible, and “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” referring to rights bestowed by God and non-transferable to anyone else. Cost would be absolutely terrified of Martin Luther King, Jr....

The U.S. constitution has remained in place with occasional substantive amendments over more than 220 years. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in a foreword to the book Dollarocracy wrote that, “we cannot govern our own affairs when our national, state, and local debates are bought and sold by billionaires, who use thirty-second commercials to shout down anyone who disagrees…The money and media election complex, producing a slurry of negative ads, spin, and obstruction, is not what the founders intended.” [1] Sanders was right to suggest that the United States’ revered “founding fathers” would be scandalized by the plutocratic madness of the...

Excuse me, Mr. President, but the New Testament, not the Old (a historical account of the era's events and immoral practices), represents the true teachings of Christ. And exactly how is Sharia law - those tenets denying women basic human rights, condoning sex with children and killing gays for merely existing - the moral high ground or an acceptable alternative to anything? I too can tear apart politically convenient misconceptions but without resorting to distorting religious texts. America, our very laws and cultural norms - from liberty to marriage and our fabled work ethic - was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles....

It is well past time for the Vatican to yank Pope Francis from the classroom of Obama the Professor and to force him back into the Classroom of Christ, the Classroom of Saving Souls In an upside-down world where revisionists get to do the rewriting of history and truth, it seems that the ‘Star Pupil’ in the wicked classroom of President Barack Obama is none other than Pope Francis. This is the worldwide image of Pope Francis over the Internet. And if that image is the wrong one, then neither the Pope nor the Vatican is doing anything to try...

The Economist magazine recently published "What's gone wrong with Democracy ... and what can be done to revive it?" The suggestion is that democracy is some kind of ideal for organizing human conduct. That's a popular misconception. The ideal way to organize human conduct is to create a system that maximizes personal liberty for all. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and most often are opposites. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison explained, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an...

For those who didn’t know this, our nation was founded by brilliant, freedom-loving heavy weights. It’s hard to imagine that nowadays because our country is currently being deconstructed by moronic, liberty-choking, light weights also known as “politicians”. In particular…Liberal politicians. Liberals, you see, don’t mind what you do as long as they approve. They’re kind of like King George III and his inbred dipsticks in that regard. Or, for a more current example, they’re somewhat like Islam with their fascism, sans the billygoat beards and the suicide vests. That said, our current crop of freedom-stranglers aren’t entirely made up of...

We hear a lot about the United States' Judeo-Christian heritage, but according to President Obama, "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding." That's what the president told a White House conference on "countering violent extremism" on Wednesday. Obama has said similar things in the past: "I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” Obama said in a June 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt. "Islam has always been part of America," he said in a 2010 statement marking the start of Ramadan. And in a 2014 statement marking Eid, Obama...