Free Republic

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Chants of “USA! USA! USA!” echoed across the University of Missouri quad Thursday afternoon as a crowd of students cheered on a student who burned an ISIS flag in a symbolic gesture in response to continual human rights violations by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The student leading the “#MUCKISIS” flag burning, Ian Paris, 21, president of the Mizzou chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, told the roughly 150 in attendance that the rally was meant to build unity among the people who came to see a flag symbolizing “hatred and intolerance” burned. It was...

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. The pamphlet explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence in clear, simple language. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in...

The Fox News Channel’s “Shepard Smith Reporting” host Shepard Smith argued the Freedom Caucus “demands” Washington grind to a halt and wants “disarray” while discussing House Majority Leader Representative Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pulling out of the race to become House speaker on Wednesday.

They really are coming for your guns . . . After the Charleston church shootings, President Obama praised Australia's draconian gun laws, which included a mandatory buy-back program, AKA confiscation. On today's Morning Joe, Mika wondered "why" we couldn't institute a similar gun ban in the United States, throwing in support for a database of all gun ownership for good measure. Joe Scarborough was actually obliged to explain to Mika that her gun ban was never going to happen because we have the Second Amendment here. That left Mika grimacing in regret [see the screengrab]. View the video here.

The meeting between Pope Francis and Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis came at the invitation of a high-ranking Vatican official connected to the Secretariat of State of the Holy See acting on behalf of the Pope himself, Breitbart News has learned. According to a person involved in arranging the meeting but who requested anonymity, the Vatican official called Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican who is well known in Rome. The official asked Moynihan if he could help arrange a meeting while the Pope was in the United States.

Ben Carson is being attacked for noting the difference between Islam and other faiths. Islam is a religion that requires a person to violate the US constitution, in order to be even a mild practitioner of that faith. In the performance of his job, a US President has to honor the Christian God Jesus, ahead of the Muslim God Allah, because America is a majority Christian nation. A moderate Muslim may be non-violent, but even he would never commit blasphemy against his God, Allah. An American President is required by law to defend the US pork industry against foreign pork...

The glaring unfairness of ObamaCare can be seen in the anonymous analysis done by a well salaried California engineer and his very low paid girlfriend, a part time mail clerk. The lady friend earns $18,000 per year to his yearly income of $60,000 to $ 125,000. “For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, with a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 a month. His gal friend, holding the exact same policy with the same deductible, pays $1.00 a month! “That’s right, $1.00 per month. I’m not making this up,” he said. Can you...

There's a giant migration, emigration, refugee problem in Europe. What the United States has been dealing with in dribbles and drabs (relatively) the European nations are swimming in. And they are falling all over themselves, each other, and the hole in their thinking in failing to come up with realistic solutions. The progressives in the United States think we should shoulder the burden of our own illegal immigrants willingly, openly, compassionately. But that isn't the real problem in Europe. Our immigration situation is at least shared with those who are our cultural brothers and sisters. The émigrés from the Middle...

Our Ageless Constitution "The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its components are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order...." -Justice Joseph Story Justice Story's words pay tribute to the United States Constitution and its Framers. Shortly before the 100th year of the Constitution, in his "History of the United States of America," written in 1886, historian George Bancroft said: "The Constitution is to the American people a possession for the ages." He went on to say: "In America, a new people had risen up without...

Just in time for tonight’s GOP presidential debate, a consortium of think tanks from nearly 90 countries has released its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report. The report has some good news for much of mankind — economic liberty increased slightly around the globe — but not such good news for the United States, which continues to tumble in the rankings. As recently as 2000, the United States had the second-freest economy in the world, trailing only Hong Kong. But throughout the Bush and Obama years, we have slipped further and further behind. Last year, we fell out of...

Leader Berta Soler Says 3,500 "Pardoned" Are Common Criminals for Show Just six days before the arrival of Pope Francis in Cuba, the island’s police arrested 50 Ladies in White and other human-rights activists, to make it 22nd consecutive Sunday of detentions and beatings. Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, explained to the PanAm Post the catch-and-release process of intimidation, and that all captives were out of jail by Monday night. The regime’s officers arrested the women, who every Sunday gather to demand the release of political prisoners, and dragged them away as they sat in protest.

Supposed sages in academe and beyond have been trying to create a schism between Libertarianism and conservatism that need not exist. M. Stanton Evans on Freedom and Virtue “Freedom and virtue have declined together and must rise together,” author M. Stanton Evans wrote in 1964. At the time Evans was the editor of the Indianapolis News. “So far are ‘value’ and ‘conformity’ from being identical that the second can rise to its current distasteful height only when the first declines,” Evans averred in an essay which appeared in the 1964 anthology, What is Conservatism? “A man without the interior armor...

The United States, ranked second in worldwide economic freedom as recently as 2000, has plummeted to 16th, according to the a new report of world economies. The Fraser Institute's annual report, Economic Freedom of the World, showed that the country's drop started in 2010, the second year of the Obama administration. The world-recognized report showed that the U.S. fell in several areas, including legal and property rights and regulation. "The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 16th in the world after being as high as second in 2000," said the report issued Monday morning. The...

Princeton University professor Robert George contended in a new video published online Tuesday that a “common misunderstanding” has led to a “serious erosion” of freedom in America. George, a professor of jurisprudence, asked at the outset of the video: “How does the Constitution of the United States seek to preserve liberty and prevent tyranny?” The professor said that most of his students would likely answer that the founders passed the Bill of Rights, leaving the Supreme Court with the power to enforce those rights. George contended that answer was wrong, saying, “That misunderstanding has led to a serious erosion of...

Navy Chaplain Lt. Cmdr. Wes Modder won't be forced out of the Navy for his religious views, according to the Independent Military Times. His commander, Capt. Jon Fahs, had been pushing for Modder's ouster, citing comments Modder allegedly made in counseling sessions critical of premarital sex and homosexual relations. In a letter, the Navy Personnel Command said the evidence doesn't meet the standard of gross negligence or complete disregard for duty needed to boot out an officer. It also cited a lack of documentation in his personal record backing charges of poor performance. "There was no record of counseling. There...

Labor Day, 2015 Dear Mr. Trump…(with some trepidation this is posted) Sir, if you are chosen to “make America great again”, understand it is a divine mission from God, much larger than yourself, your ego, your image or any business you’ve ever conducted! I don’t know if you are a Godly man, a conservative, a huckster, a tyrant or our next president… but you have lit the fire of real hope (not the phony Obama kind) among many of us who in deep frustration, no longer feel represented by those we elect. I don’t know if you’re the best vehicle...

A Kentucky clerk is in the news for refusing to issue marriage licenses for gay couples. Gays and the political elites are condemning her for not upholding the “law”. This is the latest example of the elites using the “law” to crush anyone who stands in their way. The problem is that American is no longer a nation of laws but a nation run by the whims of men, at least at the highest levels. When the Supreme Court follows the dictates of the “Living” Constitution which basically says that whatever the Court thinks is right is right we no...

Stop bellyaching about Washington. All the country’s best fascists are on your local city council. Not long ago, Colorado became a leader in the fight against religious freedom when its Civil Rights Commission, self-appointed ministers of justice and theology, decided that a shopkeeper who refuses to participate in a gay wedding ceremony must be smeared and fined out of business. A Colorado appeals court says this is kosher, finding that the brittle sensitivities of a cakeless couple outweigh the constitutional rights of Christian business owners. Now, in an effort to save everyone some time, the cultural imperialists at the Denver...

Today we’ve released The Human Freedom Index, a new report that presents a broad measure of personal, civil, and economic freedom around the world. It is co-published by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute (Canada) and the Liberales Institut (Germany), and is the most comprehensive index on freedom yet created for a globally meaningful set of countries.My co-author Tanja Porcnik and I look at 76 indicators in 152 countries to capture the degree to which people are free to engage in voluntary exchange and enjoy major liberties such as freedom of speech, religion, and association. We also include measures...

This particular chapter in Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time presents a fascinating and at times, stunning analysis of the contrast between Western and Eastern civilizations. from <Chapter 7— Creation of the Russian Civilization In the nineteenth century most historians regarded Russia as part of Europe but it is now becoming increasingly clear that Russia is another civilization quite separate from Western Civilization. Both of these civilizations are descended from Classical Civilization, but the connection with this predecessor was made so differently that two quite different traditions came into existence. Russian traditions were...