Free Republic

We managed to repeal the 18th Amendment, which created Prohibition. It is time to repeal the 17th. What? You have no idea what the 17th Amendment is? Well, it is the one that effectively ended federalism by taking the power to appoint U.S. senators from state legislatures and having the citizens directly elect them, as they had always done with the House of Representatives. We may not get better senators, but it is likely they would not try dictating to the states what they should do — as they did when they set the national speed limit at 55 mph...

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, stumbled Tuesday over basic American history, crediting Thomas Jefferson for authorship of the Bill of Rights during a debate over the First Amendment and campaign finance. “I think if Thomas Jefferson were looking down, the author of the Bill of Rights, on what’s being proposed here, he’d agree with it. He would agree that the First Amendment cannot be absolute,” Mr. Schumer said. While Jefferson is deemed the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he was not intimately involved in the writing of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is...

Objections to this Constitution of Government. There is no Declaration of Rights, and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitution of the several States, the Declaration of Rights in the separate States are no security. Nor are the people secured even in the enjoyment of the benefit of the common law (which stands here upon no other foundation than its having been adopted by the respective acts forming the constitutions of the several States.) In the House of Representatives there is not the substance but the shadow only of representation; which can never produce...

The Trayvon Martin case is already making its way into the classroom. This fall, George Mason University in Virginia will offer a sociology class called “Race and Politics, Trayvon Martin.” According to the syllabus, the class will discuss the connection between race and politics in American history and the Martin case will be presented alongside historic cases such the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision. Martin will also be discussed alongside African-American figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Emmett Till, and Rodney King. The course website indicates that the class will specifically examine “why, and in what...

"Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state." --George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

But more importantly than the cold hard facts and statistics regarding gun ownership vs "control" is the fact that the 2nd amendment to our Constitution simply acknowledges a God-given (inalienable) right that pre-exists human government - the right to self-defense against criminals and tyranny . . .

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London. Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News: Uthman also said that he had taken part in...

Received from a Navy buddy who has since been seduced by the Dark Side. ===================================================== The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too. In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

Founder’s Quotes – Jefferson and Hamilton on Citizens Duty to be Armed “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent, or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.” Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Cartwright, 1824) ”If the representatives of the people betray...

According to a new study released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, some of our most liberal states rank at the bottom in a measure of personal freedom. "Freedom in the 50 States, an index of personal and economic freedom," finds the most free states to be first New Hampshire, then Colorado, followed by S. Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia and N. Dakota.The bottom ten least free states in the U.S. are (in descending order) Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and bringing up the bottom is New York. It is...

Three relatives have been charged in connection with an embezzlement scheme at George Mason University, and investigators say they stole as much as $200,000. University police say Jose Rosado, a supervisor with Campus Living Villages-- a company that manages the dorms at GMU-- hired as many as five ghost employees. All of them were members of his extended family. ... According to Jim Short, president of Campus Living Villages, Jose Rosado was a supervisor who had been working for the company since 1998.... Explaining how the scheme worked, Short said some employees who don't have bank accounts choose to get...

Contact: Kortney Blythe, Director of Campus Life Tours (CLT), Survivors, 704-778-2702, campus@survivors.laFAIRFAX, Virginia, Jan. 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- On January 26, 2009, two college-age members of the Survivors Campus Life Tour were arrested at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, while distributing literature on the public campus.From the time of their arrival on campus the group quietly held signs, distributed literature and peacefully dialogued with students. When a student complained about the pro-life presence on school, an officer asked the Survivors to leave the campus. When members of the Campus Life Tour refused to stop their free speech activity and leave...

Geraldine Ferraro’s impolitic commentary regarding Barack Obama has been widely covered and discussed. But in the rush to examine the really juicy part of her monologue, you know – the stuff about race – something else the 72 year old former congresswoman said is being lost. Toward the end of her recent, now infamous, interview, one that has apparently cost her that highly coveted role of “Honorary New York Leadership Council Chair”, the woman who broke political ice twenty-four years ago as the Democratic nominee for Vice President, talked about the big bad wolf of PARTISANSHIP. I’m referring to the...

Even academic departments famous for having a “character” are far from intellectually homogenous, but they do suggest certain family resemblances. George Mason University’s economics department is populated by many libertarians, but libertarianism is not its most salient feature. In speaking with several members of the department, I searched for le mot juste: “Freakonomics”? “Weird economics”? “Interesting economics” turned out to be the least inaccurate term for a sub-discipline that encompasses such questions as whether bounty hunters are (and pirates were) as violent as is commonly supposed, how best to survive torture, and whether one ought to pay to have one’s...

Press Release: Election Study Finds Media Hit Hillary Hardest Obama, Huckabee Fare Best; FOX Is Most Balanced (not a typo) TV election news has been hardest on Hillary Clinton this fall, while Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have been the biggest media favorites, according to a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. The study also found that Fox NewsChannel's evening news show provided more balanced coverage than its counterparts on the broadcast networks.

Snapped Shot has an update on the situation at George Mason University, where the Muslim Student Association has basically taken over a “shared meditation room” and is intimidating Christian students who try to use it:

RICHMOND — College students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus, saying they should have the right to protect themselves in a situation like the one in which 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty were fatally shot.

So why is George Mason a forgotten founder? As Jeff Broadwater notes in his new biography, " George Mason" (University of North Carolina Press, 352 pages, $34.95), "during Mason's lifetime only Washington ranked higher in public esteem." An agile debater, Mason had a major impact on the Constitutional Convention. As principal author of Virginia's Declaration of Rights, his work served as a model for the Bill of Rights. Washington and Jefferson regarded him as indispensable to the revolutionary cause. And yet Mason has not been accorded a niche in the pantheon that includes his august admirers. Mr. Broadwater canvases the...

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." -- George Mason (speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 14 June 1778) Reference: The Debates of the Several State..., Elliot, vol. 3 (380)