Free Republic

So I am in a debate with colleagues about the future of capitalism and socialism and they are claiming that with the rise of automation, capitalism will fail as an economic system and the only way to prevent mass starvation and severe poverty i to implement all of the socialist ideas of Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi and others and do it now. The idea is that with the rise of automation technology, any job that depends on manual labor and repetitive actions will simply be gone and tons of construction and other jobs will disappear. And so there will...

It's Memorial Day week. You can tell as you flip through the local paper; Memorial Day notices appear as sales headlines and attention grabbers. "Memorial Day Sale" and "Pre-Memorial Day Sale." Pretty soon, we'll see post-Memorial Day sale advertisements. Sales and barbecue are the two things that many people think about when Memorial Day is mentioned. What else? Well, for many Americans, it's the weekend that the pool opens and summer begins. But it means more than that. Memorial Day began soon after the Civil War as Decoration Day. It was the day the graves of the fallen members of...

Submit to the Lord and you will find, Breakthrough of a new kind, For in submission Heaven becomes clear, And you will see into things others fear, For The Father's Heart is Pure Above All, And only The Holy may access and call, For The Eyes of The Cherubim guard what is pure, So only the Holy are able to endure . . . Isaiah 6:5-8 5 Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for...

Complete Headline: Kerry: Internet 'Needs Rules to Be Able to Flourish and Work Properly' - Calls for more international Internet laws. In a speech today in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Internet "needs rules to be able to flourish and work properly." This, according to Kerry, is necessary even for "a technology founded on freedom." Speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, Kerry said that Internet policy is "a key component of our foreign policy." Kerry made his remarks in the context of talking about how international law is applicable to the Internet.

With each passing day I grow increasingly tired of debating anti-American contrarians who refuse to recognize even the most universally espoused truths. It is nearly impossible to engage the left in meaningful discourse, allow voters an earnest opportunity to judge candidates on the merits of their beliefs and record, without Democrats resorting to juvenile grandstanding and the regurgitated accusations of race, gender, and class warfare. When the American flag becomes offensive in the country for which it was commissioned, government transparency requires a coup d'etat, handouts are more celebrated than hard work, and the necessity of protecting our borders and...

Charles Murray, already controversial for writing books on how welfare hurts the poor, on ethnic differences in IQ and on (less controversial, but my favorite) happiness and good government, has written a new book that argues that it's time for civil disobedience. Government has become so oppressive, constantly restricting us with new regulations, that our only hope is for some of us to refuse to cooperate. Murray's suggestion -- laid out in "By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission," will make some people nervous. He argues that citizens and companies should start openly defying all but the most useful regulations,...

Last week The New Republic’s Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig wrote an extended pre-mortem not just for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign but for the culture wars in general. Tracing the rise of Huckabee’s political career to the rise of the religious Right, she tries to use Huckabee’s career as a stand-in for the fortunes of religious conservatism writ large. To Bruenig, a Huckabee defeat will represent “one more [conservative] loss in a greater, longer defeat in America’s culture wars.” I agree with Bruenig that Mike Huckabee will probably lose, but I come to the exact opposite conclusion about the culture wars. A...

Post-Cold War honeymoon is long over. It was a geopolitical honeymoon that the West should have never taken in the first place After the Cold War ended, much promise was held out that the world would rapidly democratize—particularly states with notoriously poor human rights records such as China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Alas, these were utopian dreams. We were told that transferring large amounts of wealth and technology to authoritarian regimes would make them richer and free—only the former took place. We educated their leaders, often at our taxpayers’ expense, with the promise that these Western educated leaders would usher...

Post-Cold War honeymoon is long over. It was a geopolitical honeymoon that the West should have never taken in the first place After the Cold War ended, much promise was held out that the world would rapidly democratize—particularly states with notoriously poor human rights records such as China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Alas, these were utopian dreams. We were told that transferring large amounts of wealth and technology to authoritarian regimes would make them richer and free—only the former took place. We educated their leaders, often at our taxpayers’ expense, with the promise that these Western educated leaders would usher...

If we abandon Godliness, we will surely abandon liberty, for without morality, we are incapable of freedom Benjamin Franklin said that only a “virtuous people are capable of freedom.” Franklin understood the importance of a moral society, and how secularism may seem free on the surface, but that a society that abandons the Laws of Nature by Nature’s God ultimately leads themselves to bondage, under human masters and tyrannical statism. The Founding Fathers recognized the truth about human nature, primarily viewing it from a classical Christian angle. Our rights are self-evident, but so is the fact that while humans are...

The unnamed traffic cop who stood up to two offended killers did not follow Gandhi’s advice; he refused to lay down his arms or try to fight them with non-violent arms. His heroism reminds us that freedom is not defended with empty idealism easily perverted into appeasement of evil, but with the force of arms. Gandhi and his Western disciples were wrong. The soldiers who fought Hitler did far more to save humanity than Gandhi ever did. A single traffic cop with a gun has had more of a positive impact on freedom of speech in this country than all...

This is a streaming video http://www.scfreedomsummit.com

Must we accept that we are no longer the electorate and the elected, but the ruling and the ruled? “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”- Benjamin Franklin What has happened to the United States? Many say that it is a natural progression that is inevitable, but is it actually the breakdown of our morals, our ethics, our family structure and our school systems? Is it the inevitable “chains of government,” that have slowly but surely bound us with the very freedoms we claim to embrace? In...

Gov. Scott Walker told a heavily — if not exclusively — Christian crowd gathered at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee Thursday to go out and share their faith with the world, and to pray for their leaders in government and business regardless of party or position. "Always pray for our leaders so that God's will will be followed rather than their own," he said. Walker spoke at the annual Governor's Prayer Breakfast, organized by the West Allis-based Christian publishing nonprofit ProBuColls Association. An evangelical Christian, Walker has been increasingly open about his faith on the campaign trail, as he...

....While Geller claims to stand for American values, much of what she does undermines our values.... ...this isn't only about free speech...It's also about how some people use freedom of speech to subvert other American values. I am Muslim, and after attacks like these, folks always ask, "Do you condemn terrorism?" Or they throw up their hands and say, "Where are the Muslims!" Well, to be blunt: Not at the event. In fact, every major mosque in the Garland, Texas, area not only shrugged off the anti-Islam event happening in their backyard... It appears from early reports that the suspects...

When some of us expressed fear of what we saw and heard about the protests against religious-rights laws, many people either saw no issue or condemned us for being alarmist or hate-filled Christians. It is time for well-meaning people to think this through. Hillary Clinton said last week culture and religious beliefs “have” to be changed to achieve women's rights. Is that just feel-good rhetoric, or does she really mean it? If so, what does it imply to say religious beliefs “have” to be changed? We don’t need to discuss theology. At its foundation this isn’t about theology at all,...

The GOP’s destructive Vietnam mythology: How the right’s self-glorifying delusions led to decades of avoidable war It only took about five years from the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, for the American right to succeed in burying the moment under mounds of revisionist horse shit. Ronald Reagan, speaking at a campaign appearance in the summer of 1980, said, It is time that we recognized that [the American War in Vietnam] was, in truth, a noble cause… We dishonor the memory of 50 thousand young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt...

The notion that there is a threshold above which authoritarian nations would democratize is attractive, but our experience since the end of the Cold War suggests this view is too simplistic and results in a risky foreign policy stance for the West A narrative has dominated the West’s foreign policy since the end of the Cold War: if we increase per capita GDP in authoritarian nations, they will democratize. Most notably, this doctrine was applied to China, and yet China failed to move away from its authoritarian system. Russia has gotten wealthier and returned to authoritarianism. Both nations used the...

Some of the nearly 300 girls and women freed by Nigeria’s military from the forest stronghold of Boko Haram were so transformed by their captivity that they opened fire on their rescuers, and experts said Wednesday they would need intensive psychological treatment. The military was flying in medical and intelligence teams to evaluate the former captives, many of whom were severely traumatized, said army spokesman Col. Sani Usman. He said earlier that none of the schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok a year ago appeared to be among the 200 girls and 93 women rescued Tuesday. But on...

May 1 marks what is known as May Day, a celebration of international workers chosen by the socialists and Communists of the Second International to recognize the Haymarket affair in Chicago’s Haymarket Square of May 1886. In order to ring in the holiday, we thought it apt to share 10 books on socialism and Communism and their impact on mankind. 1) The Marx-Engels Reader by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels This book contains the core works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which provide the intellectual basis for socialism and Communism. 2) The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek One...