Free Republic

The central premise of my new book – that the plantation defines not merely the origin but the entire history of the Democratic Party – will seem at the first glance, and for those unfamiliar with my previous work, far-fetched or even crazy. The old Democratic plantation system, after all, was involuntary; it was based on forcibly confining slaves. Today, however, the Democrats don’t have anyone penned up in this way, and they certainly aren’t forcing anyone to work. This objection, however, can be answered by recalling how the antebellum Democrats regarded the old plantation. Democratic Sen. James Chesnut regarded...

Yesterday I visited our local bookstore and was struck by the abundance of magazine covers promoting marijuana. Later my wife commented that she’s received two ads this week for cannabis products, something she’s never received before! What’s going on? In case you haven’t noticed or are simply distracted by the busyness of life, propaganda promoting marijuana and its legalization is bombarding us. Should we be concerned about something that is celebrated as a “harmless recreational” indulgence that progressive people should embrace excitedly? Recently our state newspaper ran a prominent piece by a young woman calling for weed to be legalized....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to. An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used privacy settings that say they will prevent it from doing so. Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request.

Plastic straws may soon be contraband in Hallandale Beach. All five commissioners gave initial approval to a citywide ban shortly after midnight Thursday.

I want to urge legislative consideration to the amending of our current civil rights legislation to include non discrimination against one's political opinion. I began this analyses after Black supporters of our elected president wearing MAGA hats were put out by a low life Uber driver in New York City , but of far greater concern are alt-leftists companies like Facebook and Twitter purging conservative posters in the stream of public accommodation and commerce. ( today causing a 25% collapse of Facebook Stock value.) We learned from the Supreme Court case Marsh vs. Alabama ( URL above) the following analyses...

The granting or withholding of that approval is a powerful lever over our lives. Do you have permit for that? If you want to keep that permit, you'd better do as you're told. Increasingly, that's the theme of modern America. More and more of what we do is dependent on permission from the government. That permission, unsurprisingly, is contingent on keeping government officials happy. Rub those officials the wrong way and they'll strip you of permission to travel the roads, leave the country, or even make a living. That's not a recipe for a free country. In February of this...

Later this week, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host the first-ever “Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom” at the State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. The fact that this meeting is being held is about as important as what will come out of it.True, the substance matters. It’s crucial that activists and government officials from around the world hear tales of persecution from individuals whose plight has been overlooked or who have been beyond the reach of all press coverage. It is important that organizations know how to access government funds available to help them aid the persecuted. It...

Surveillance video...shows the customer punching the restaurant manager in the face. After that, a waitress pulls a gun from her apron and the man backs off.

PHOENIX, Arizona -- A 92-year-old woman is charged with murder after deputies say she fatally shot her own son because she thought he wanted to move her to an assisted living facility. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says Anna Mae Blessing had lived with her 72-year-old son Thomas and his girlfriend at the girlfriend's condo for the last six months. Court records show she believed her son and his girlfriend were talking about putting her in the facility because she had become "difficult to deal with." According to detectives, Blessing hid two handguns in the pockets of her robe and...

Unmoored Freedom is No Freedom – A Reflection on the 4th of July Msgr. Charles Pope • July 3, 2018 • To most modern minds, freedom is a very detached concept; it is an abstraction of sorts, a free-floating power unmoored from any limits or defining standards. Freedom today is often viewed as personal and self-referential, with little consideration as to how one’s “freedom” might affect that of someone else. A healthy sense of the common good suffers mightily in a world of deeply conflicting personal freedoms.I have written before on the paradoxes of freedom and will not repeat...

Hey! Just for fun, I went on Google and typed the words “Democrat ban”. Why are democrat busybodies so active in banning things? It came back with millions upon millions of entries. I did it on Bing, Duckduckgo, and a few others. In every instance, the results were astounding. Heck! Why are busybodies permitted to go on like they do? What do these busybodies expect to accomplish by to taking people’s money away and banning things? What is their malfunction? Busybodies. It’s all pretty messed up… Freedom Now, to be fair, the Republicans are also out to ban things. It...

You want to take things from people? You want to take away their freedom? First you must disarm them. Then you may have your way with them One of the billions of pictured thought-captions floating around the web, asks this question: “Why is it that liberals demand gun control after every shooting - but never border control after every rape and murder by illegals?!” Those sorts of ‘memes’, as they’re called, perhaps rile people up. But, in the big picture, in the sea of words out there, that no one seems to slow down and sort through, it is a...

My friends, we will stand together. We will stand firm. We will not submit. Never. Not in Israel, not in Europe, not in America. Nowhere. We will survive. We will stop islam. We will defend our freedoms. We will remain free. via A warning to America -- Speech Geert Wilders, Cornerstone Church, Nashville, 12 May 2011 Dear friends from Tennessee. I am very happy to be in your midst today. I am happy and proud to be in this impressive church. My friends, I am here to speak words of truth and freedom. Do you know why America is in...

Have Americans forgotten that freedom makes getting along easier? We do not all have to like each other. We do not even all have to be nice to each other. We just don’t have license to hit or hornswoggle our fellows. Hate speech may be bad, but it is hate assaults — not talk — that should be punished by law. This distinction, between talk and act, is important. One way to look at it is to accept it as a “hierarchy.” And when it comes to hierarchy, you cannot get more deep into it than in thinking theologically. Which...

The American Civil Liberties Union is reexamining its long-standing position in favor of freedom of speech. Spokesman Bertram Petty explained that "in the past the biggest threat to freedom of speech came from the government trying to silence advocates of socialist and communist solutions to public problems. Now that socialist and communist principles form an important part of the guidance for government activities in the United States it is no longer clear that freedom of speech to attack policies based on these ideas is worthy of our support." "For example, a knee-jerk defense of freedom of speech would compel the...

Today, June 21, the Loudoun County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors (BoS) will consider a proposal from Supervisor Kristen Umstattd (D-Leesburg) to amend the Loudoun County ordinance dealing with the discharge of firearms, which will affect both hunting and shooting. If this passes, there are likely to be serious consequences. Supervisor Umstattd is overreacting to a rare incident in Loudoun where a firearm was discharged carelessly and resulted in minor property damage. Discharging a weapon is always a serious matter. If the Board reacts hastily to an isolated incident, that would be a serious mistake, but that may be what is...

“Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!” commanded Colonel William Prescott, repeating the order of General Israel Putnam, June 17, 1775. Colonel William Prescott’s men were in the center redoubt located on Breed’s Hill, adjacent Bunker Hill, guarding the north entrance to Boston Harbor. Samuel Swett wrote in his “History of Bunker Hill” that as the 2,300 British soldiers advanced: “The American marksmen are with difficulty restrained from firing. Putnam rode through the line, and ordered that no one should fire till they arrived within eight rods. … Powder was scarce and must not be wasted. They...

I had lunch recently with a colleague of mine named Allan. He’s a retired professor who once taught at a university in New York and now teaches inside prisons. Allan was talking in despairing tones about America and wanted to know my thoughts on the matter. When I asked him to be more specific, he was taken aback at the idea that further clarification was needed. He couldn’t understand my failure to see the utter hopelessness of the society all around me. Allan is 68 years old and a self-proclaimed Marxist. Both of his parents were surgeons from New York,...

The reality of a Free World depends upon clear-minded people who love freedom so much that they would be willing to sacrifice their own lives for such Liberty, and that is why the very real sacrifices made on D-Day should always be remembered Remembering D-Day with the genuine sense of danger, destruction, and death that had stained that dark period of world history will soon be lost to the generations of youth who will inherit the future. D-day belongs to cobwebs of history, and the old, old soldiers who returned from the horrors of that war have faded into the...

When you drove down California Street through San Francisco's Richmond District in the 1970s, one house made a stronger impression than most others. This was not because the house was an architectural marvel. It was a small, cookie-cutter Victorian. No, it stood out because it was painted black. From sidewalk to rooftop, every inch was coated in a uniform darkness. Its owner in those days was Anton LeVey, author of "The Satanic Bible"; and, years later, when it was about to be torn down, the San Francisco Chronicle would refer to it as "the building that once housed San Francisco's...