Free Republic

The blogosphere is sounding off about a pending new Obama policy that would impact not only the 2nd Amendment, but the 1st Amendment as well. As incredible as it seems, individuals would be in violation by “merely posting information on the Internet about common firearms” which “could be interpreted as illegally sharing sensitive information with foreign nationals” Applying issues related to “exporting” and “foreign nations” under an international treaty to individual on-line speech (under the guise of improperly sharing technical data about firearms) may seem like a stretch, but it is apparently what is happening, unless public opposition is voiced...

History is not static and it does not progress linearly. There was more free speech and unimpeded expression in 5th-century Athens than in Western Europe between 1934-45, or in Eastern Europe during 1946-1989. An American could speak his mind more freely in 1970 than now. Many in the United States had naively believed that the Enlightenment, the U.S. Constitution, and over two centuries of American customs and traditions had guaranteed that Americans could always take for granted free speech and unfettered inquiry That is an ahistorical assumption. The wish to silence, censor, and impede thought is just as strong a...

Here is a list of great quotes left by Anonymous on a major forum. Use them to start discussions at school and elsewhere. Some of these quotes are scarily appropriate to our present situation in Obama's America. Others show how our founding fathers were thinking 200 years ago. What our public schools now call Critical Thinking is usually neither critical nor thinking. It's blind acceptance of politically correct opinions. Debate. Argue. Discuss. Finally, figure out answers for yourself. --- "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that...

If you thought building your own laser weapon at home was hot stuff, you haven't seen anything yet. Do-it-yourself fan Styropyro has built a laser "shotgun" whose eight 5W beams are adjustable with lenses, much like you'd adjust the choke on a conventional shotgun to narrow or widen its buckshot spread. As you might gather, 40W of combined laser power is pretty powerful -- and unbelievably dangerous. The gun can destroy everything from balloons to ping pong balls, and there are reflected beams that could easily smack someone's eye. Don't try this at home, folks. It's still an impressive feat...

Kirsten Powers gets it. There is an assault on free speech in this country that is coming from the political left. But the people responsible for it are not liberals. They aren’t worthy of the title of liberal, which presupposes a degree of tolerance for opposing opinions. They are illiberal leftists and they are crushing the free exchange of ideas in this country. To make matters worse, they know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. In other words, they are not ignorant of, or merely indifferent to, constitutional principles. They are at war with them....

Over the weekend, by way of the NRA some troubling news spread across the Internet: “Commonly used and unregulated Internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a ‘gag order on firearm-related speech,'” This stems from an Obama Regime reinterpretation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The State Department is updating the ITAR, which implements the Federal Arms Export Control Act (AECA). The net effect of this new ITAR amplification would be to reclassify gun blogs, forums, chat rooms, and firearms “how-to” web pages as...

Obama To Circumvent Congress With ‘Gag Order’ On Firearm Coverage by AWR Hawkins 7 Jun 2015 On June 1 Breitbart News reported on Obama’s Spring 2015 “Unified Agenda.” The gun control measures contained therein which were to be passed by executive fiat. Since that time Representatives like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY-4th) have placed riders on a DOJ appropriations bill to stop portions of the executive gun control push in its tracks. Now the NRA-ILA is revealing that the Obama administration is working behind the scenes to stifle reporting on firearms. From the NRA-ILA: Even as news reports have been highlighting...

It's happening again— President Obama is using his imperial pen and telephone to curb your rights and bypass Congress through executive action. Even as news reports have been highlighting the gun control provisions of the Administration's "Unified Agenda" of regulatory objectives (see accompanying story), the Obama State Department has been quietly moving ahead with a proposal that could censor online speech related to firearms. This latest regulatory assault, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register, is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second. Your action is urgently needed to ensure...

At Boise State University in Idaho, a campus organization — just one of many at the 22,000-student school — wanted to have its voice heard. At two events last year — one called “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust” and another called “What Has Roe Done for Us?” — the pro-life Abolitionists4Life sought to display imagery of abortions. This was in line with their mission: to end it. “We seek to raise awareness to our generation through equipping students to become abortion abolitionists who will courageously bring to light the suppressed issue of abortion in our society today,” the group’s Web...

Presumed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was recently asked about the “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, TX that was attacked by two jihadists, and what Mr. Bush thought of event organizer and ardent counterjihadist Pamela Geller. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was not, but a new book gives insight into how she might think about the issue given her support as Secretary of State of a policy put forth by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the UN that comes into direct conflict with the First Amendment. As Maj. Stephen Coughlin (Ret.) writes in his “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America...

I love how this works. Gun-Free zones are becoming the main place where anyone has to worry about getting shot. There are countless examples within the last decade such as FT Hood, DC Shipyard, Various Schools among others where violence occurs and guns are restricted. . While the event in Garland, TX was not a Gun-Free zone, only people with permits can carry guns in TX both concealed or unconcealed. The police had guns and took down the terrorists just a hair too late as one of the guards was struck by enemy fire. Everyone else remained unscathed. The flip...

Last Wednesday, the Texas Legislature pushed through, and I mean pushed, controversial legislation which repeals portions of the First Amendment, effectively ending citizen journalism in the Capitol. How quaint, eh? Yep, when Texas legislators found out about the undercover video footage about to be released by Hannah Giles (of ACORN fame) and Joseph Basel with the American Phoenix Foundation, they flipped out and quickly jammed through legislation, SB19, which would criminalize this First Amendment practice from 1985 forward. Why they picked 1985 only lawless liberals and repugnant Republicans can know. I would have thought for an apropos Orwellian effect theyÂ’d...

There’s nothing quite like learning about the fate of your hard-fought advocacy work through a tweet. I was spending time with my wife and children, doing our devotions, enjoying a nice big breakfast, and not worrying about the world around us for those precious morning hours last week. As the kids scurried out the door for their homeschoolers’ dance class, I started flipping through all of the notifications on my phone. “@LifeHasPurpose @RyanBomberger Congrats on big 4th Circuit ?#FreeSpeech win vs. ?@NAACP censorship attempt!” Greg Scott of Alliance Defending Freedom tweeted. Talk about being caught off guard. I rushed to...

A Texas college student filed suit against her school this week, saying her constitutional rights were violated when she was shooed off the quad for displaying a pro-Second Amendment sign. Nicole Sanders, 24, who attends Blinn College, a two-year public college in Brenham, Texas, said she and a classmate at the 18,000-student school were holding signs near the student center in February when they were told to move. Sanders' sign read, “Defend Gun Rights on Campus,” and the other said “LOL,” with President Obama’s logo as the “O.” The pair was trying to attract members for a student group they...

In writing about his beloved Cuba, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo asserts that "totalitarianism is as much about tyranny as about [the] manipulation of time." He knows only too well how the Castro brothers have destroyed the hopes and dreams of the Cuban people for more than a half century. And now in a devastating blow and under the guise of rapprochement, Barack Obama continues to support this communist tyranny. And the Cuban people continue to suffer and weep for true freedom. While sadly, we Americans continue to squander it. A 2013 poll revealed that "40 percent of Americans said the...

Hillary Clinton released an announcement over Memorial Day weekend on her Facebook page, saying that what we may think of as "free speech" can be hurtful towards other Americans, and we should put more effort into monitoring what we and others say to avoid painful dialogues, especially on the internet. "There is a problem in this country when people, mostly right-wing bigots, can easily inflict pain and suffering towards others through hurtful words and objections against alternative lifestyles and political stances. You often see it on Facebook and other forms of social media, where they are constantly spewing hate and...

I love Pamela Geller. I have known and loved her for years. She is a great American! If only everyone who has the honor of calling himself American could grow courage like hers we would be un-terrorizable as a nation. Pamela gets that we are at war and stands as an example for those of us who have lost our way. Many of you under fifty have been educated by the whackerino indoctrinators crowding reality out of our High Schools and Universities. These liars and fantasists are so busy obliterating, truncating or revising history (when they're not entirely ignoring it),...

So, National Review’s Charlie Cooke found an interesting poll showing that a majority of Democrats–and a substantial proportion of Republicans–want to upend the foundation of First Amendment law in the United States. They want to criminalize so-called hate speech. Nevertheless, 60 percent of Americans say that it’s “okay” publish Muhammad cartoons, and over 70 percent approve of our right to offend. So, what’s going on here? Party affiliation is the only place where we see a majority for making hate speech a crime. That honor is awarded to the Democrats, where 51 percent agree with that sentiment, according to a YouGov poll. Yet, 37...

A poll released Wednesday by the online pollster YouGov has found that a plurality of the American public, as well as a majority of Democrats, support limiting the First Amendment to allow a ban on hate speech.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has suggested that a key litmus test in evaluating prospective Supreme Court appointees would be their willingness to challenge "the right of billionaires to buy elections." Presumably, a suitable judge would indicate a desire to overturn the Citizens United decision that struck down a ban on political expenditures by corporations and unions ruled to violate the First Amendment protection of free speech – a case coincidentally centered on Citizen United’s attempt to advertise for and air a film critical of none other than Clinton. In light of recent allegations swirling around the presidential favorite, Clinton’s...