Free Republic

If we adopt the compassion of time rather than that of cash, we are not trying to do the same thing as liberals, only a bit more cheaply. Instead, we must ask of every idea that calls itself compassionate, "Does it make great demands on men (and women) to give themselves to their brethren?" Are we offering not coerced silver, but our lives? If we talk of crisis pregnancies, are we actually willing to provide a home to a pregnant young woman? If we talk of abandoned children, are we actually willing to adopt a child? We need to ask...

Russia’s Arms Control Goals Sarah Carlsruh, December 7, 2009 The scenario of World War Three with thousands of nuclear weapons flying across the globe in both directions and tens of billions of people killed, that really has disappeared,” asserted former National Intelligence Council (NIC) chairman Fritz Ermarth at the Heritage Foundation on December 1st. Yet, that does not mean that the threat of nuclear weapons has vanished. The START I arms-reduction treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was entered into force on December 5, 1994 and expires on December 5th, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian...

Perhaps, we need to think about our heritage these days. Perhaps, it's time to remember that we were always never as scared as we are today. Perhaps, it's time to appreciate the heritage that others would have us forget. For one, I have had enough of "modern" PC America. Perhaps, our forefathers really did have something going.

Religion and Families Allie Winegar Duzett, November 5, 2009 Studies of the past decade’s religiosity “can be boiled into good news and bad news,” said Annette Mahoney of Bowling Green State University at a recent Heritage Foundation conference, Religious Practice and the Family: What the Research Says. “The bad news is that almost no research has been done on how religion operates when problems are not prevented,” she said, adding that “the good news is that religion does matter for families.” Mahoney explained that religion tends to help people in “maintaining any family relationship, traditional or not, such as being...

Abstract: Supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry. Arguments for same-sex marriage are based fundamentally on the idea that limiting marriage to the union of husband and wife is a form of bigotry, irrational prejudice, and even hatred against homosexual persons. As this ideology seeps into the culture more generally, individuals and institutions that support marriage as the union of husband and wife risk paying a price for that belief in many...

TheConservatives.com Status Update Allie Winegar Duzett, November 2, 2009 John Solomon is not just a writer for The Washington Times—he is also a founder of the new Times-sponsored website, TheConservatives.com. Solomon discussed this new website at a recent Heritage Foundation Bloggers’ Briefing. TheConservatives.com is an innovative new site with amazing new technologies. At this website, people can keep up with profiled conservatives, such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, in a way that they couldn’t before: the site aggregates everything that such profiled conservatives are up to. This means that if you want to check out what Mitt Romney is...

Minority Raises Its Profile Allie Winegar Duzett, November 2, 2009 Yet another eloquent conservative spokesman whom media outlets can’t seem to find spoke at the Bloggers’ Briefing at the Heritage Foundation last week. “For those of you who want to know, I’m not going to be on Dancing with the Stars,” Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) said, laughing about his relationship with former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay at a recent Heritage Foundation Bloggers’ Briefing. “It’s been an interesting ten months,” Rep. Olson began, referring to the myriad of legislation the Obama administration has proposed: health care, cap and trade, et cetera....

Advanced Ambulance Chasing by: Allie Winegar Duzett, October 14, 2009 The lawsuit industry makes up about six percent of America’s GDP and costs thirty times more than what the NIH spends annually on cures for deadly diseases, said Lawrence J. McQuillan at a recent Heritage Foundation event. McQuillan, the director of Business and Economic Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, has dedicated countless hours to the study of tort and the potential effects of tort reform on the American economy (many of his results can be found in the PRI publication “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System”)....

Topping Torts by: Allie Winegar Duzett, October 14, 2009 When Haley Barbour was first elected governor there, he said at the recent Heritage Foundation event, Tort Reform in the States: Protecting Consumers and Enhancing Economic Growth, Mississippi was the worst place for tort abuse. The state had been dealing with bad state Supreme Court decisions, extreme lawsuit abuse, and campaigns to stop lawsuit reform. So Barbour decided to run for governor on a platform of tort reform. This was vital, Barbour said, to getting tort reform passed at all. According to Barbour, state tort reform can never pass without the...

Each generation must renew the sense of discovery that is at the core of what it means to be American. We are all on a voyage to a new world, but there is no guarantee it will be a better one. Preserving the vision of America as the shining city on a hill requires the same boldness as Columbus, and the same willingness to take action. In these days when schools teach that our national heroes are villains, when a president gains international recognition for apologizing for the country, when climate change fanatics tell us we must halt our journey...

Doing Crime Without Time by: Anthony Kang, August 28, 2009 The rule of law is imperative in order for any nation and society to function, prosper, and survive. In regards to the law and order most appropriate and just for juvenile offenders under the age of 18, decisions about sentencing are delegated to the juvenile court systems for judgment and rehabilitation. Therefore, the 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision was highly scrutinized, as the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision banned capital punishment’s applicability against defendants who were held on trial for crimes they had originally committed under the age of 18....

Ambassador John Bolton will be addressing the First Principles on First Fridays monthly lecture series sponsored by Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on September 11, 2009 in The Allison Auditorium at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Ambassador Bolton will be speaking on "Obama's Foreign Policy: A Report Card". To RSVP, please go to http://www.hillsdale.edu/firstfridays.asp or call 202-248-5084 and ask for Jennifer Powell.

They came from Ohio, from Colorado, from Alabama, from Illinois, from Kalamazoo, and they came hauling black guitar cases bearing the iconic Heritage Guitar logo. On Friday, nearly 60 proud Heritage Guitar owners from across the country crammed into the company's small Parsons Street factory for the second annual Parson Street Pilgrimage. Later they planned to head to a farm in Plainwell for a Heritage-only jam-session. Started through an Internet forum for Heritage owners, 23 people came to the first Pilgrimage last year, said Jim Wallace, a forum member who helped start the yearly visit to the Kalamazoo guitar factory....

1.Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear. 2.Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans—whether employer plans or individual plans—would have to conform to new federal...

Even so-called moderates land on the right side sometimes. This guy finds himself defending culture and heritage in a way that makes him look almost right-of-center. Of course, it might be an accident, given the rest of the (still very new) blog. One to watch, I guess. From the article: "But it must always be remembered that a people does not give up its heritage easily, no matter who the people are. To ask them to do so is madness, and doomed to failure."

How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower A common theme that runs through President Obama's statements is the idea the United States must atone for its past policies, whether it is America's application of the war against Islamist terrorism or its overall foreign policy. At the core of this message is the concept that the U.S. is a flawed nation that must seek redemption by apologizing for its past "sins."

Tyler Frost, 17, a senior at Heritage Christian School in Findlay, Ohio has been suspended for attending a prom with his girlfriend because the Findlay High School’s prom allowed dancing and music. This Taliban-like ruling is based on the Christian school’s policy that forbids dancing, rock music, hand holding and kissing. Principal Tim England says that Frost was supposed to receive his diploma on May 24 but will now receive an “incomplete” on his remaining assignments. He absence will be hard to miss: he is in a class of four students. England further threatens that, if he learns that Frost...

Jack Kemp was a great player in the world of ideas, with a mind as strong as his arm. His strength and friendship will be missed greatly.

5/4/2009 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- Air Force heritage walked before today's deployed servicemembers when 18 volunteer Airmen from the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing wore vintage uniforms at showcase events here April 24 and again April 27. Operation Uniform Delta was a sample of a collection started and maintained by Tech. Sgt. Jack Waid, 379th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron escort flight NCO, who is deployed from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. "Since the moment I arrived, I have wanted to get the uniforms here," said Sergeant Waid. The base's five private organizations -- Company Grade Officers Council, Desert Chiefs, Desert...

Contemporary American conservatism, which is notorious for its internal factionalism, is held together by a self-evident truth: conservatives' shared antipathy to modern liberalism. Their main objections are well-known. Almost to a man or woman, conservatives oppose using government authority to enforce a vision of greater equality labeled by its supporters, with great seduction, as "social justice." Nearly as many conser vatives object to the use of government authority--or, alternatively, to the denial of government authority where it is natural, legal, and appropriate--to pro mote a worldview of individualism, expressivism, and secularism. Finally, most conservatives want nothing to do with an...

Today in more than 500 locations in all 50 states, American taxpayers will hold ‘Tea Party’ rallies to protest exploding government spending and the inevitable higher taxes that will be needed to pay for it. We wish we could direct you to one website that had a comprehensive list of all the events and a clear mission statement for the movement, but none exists. The defenders of big government desperately want to dismiss today’s rallies as a top down corporate funded campaign, but they can’t even get their conspiracy theories straight. The Center for American Progress says former Majority Leader...

What's so important about April 19,l 1775 Why April 19, 1775?The day prior, an “unimpeachable source� (believed to be British General Gage’s American-born wife) informed Dr. Joseph Warren that British troops would deploy for Concord the night of April 18, in order to seize Colonial military supplies believed to be stored there. This wasn’t the first time they had done so—in September of the previous year they had seized 250 barrels of gunpowder from the Massachusetts Provincial Powder House in Charlestown. The route the British planned to take was not initially known: they might take boats from Boston to...

Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Brian Riedl details how President Barack Obama’s budget raises taxes on Americans by $1.4 trillion

Star Children for DarwinFeb 28, 2009 — Why should we be looking for alien intelligence around other stars when it is right behind your eyeballs?  You may not have known that you are a star child, but that’s what a leading astronomer called you.  As a good star child, you need to pay tribute to Charles Darwin.     In New Scientist, Lawrence Krauss called on children of spaceship Earth to “Celebrate evolution as only star children can.”  In this, he tied together the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope on...

A major public policy success, welfare reform in the mid-1990s led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty. This successful reform, however is now in jeopardy: Little-noted provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate stimulus bills actually abolish this historic reform. In addition, the stimulus bills will add nearly $800 billion in new means-tested welfare spending over the next decade. This new spending amounts to around $22,500 for every poor person in the U.S. The cost of the new welfare spending amounts, on average, to over $10,000 for each family paying income tax. *...

There are certain dates that are seared into the memories of all Americans. Dates that altered the course of our union; sometimes in moments of glory, often in moments of tragedy. Today, Friday the 13th, is one of those days. Today, both the House and Senate passed what will historically be looked at as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the U.S. Congress; a bill that will ultimately be the judge and jury of President Obama’s first term in office. There is no doubt that President Obama will sign the legislation that he lobbied for on Monday....

All of the major news outlets are reporting that the stimulus bill voted out of conference committee last night has a meager $789 billion price tag. This number is pure fantasy. No one believes that the increased funding for programs the left loves like Head Start, Medicaid, COBRA, and the Earned Income Tax Credit is in anyway temporary. No Congress under control of the left will ever cut funding for these programs. So what is the true cost of the stimulus if these spending increases are made permanent? Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the...

Clearly, the single most important challenge for the Obama administration and the new Congress is to revive our ailing economy. Our arcane tax code, apparently too complex even for two of the government's most important tax officials - House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and Treasury Secretary-Designate Timothy Geithner - should be the primary target of all that pent-up legislative energy on Capitol Hill. Now's the ideal time to comprehensively reform our tax system. Properly done, this reform will accomplish two important goals. It will (1) spark economic growth by increasing the incentives for Americans to work, save...

Barack Obama’s ancestral Irish homestead could be transformed into a museum or heritage centre to welcome the President-elect to Ireland should he visit in the future. As preparations get under way in Washington DC for the momentous inauguration this week, the tiny village of Moneygall, Co Offaly is considering ways to honour the historic connection. Records uncovered in 2007 found the President-elect’s fourth great grandfather was a shoemaker in the midlands village whose son Fulmuth Kearney left for the US in the 1850s. The land — known in the area as Kearney’s Gardens — is owned by Offaly County Council...

(At the link, click again for video or MP3.) -- For centuries, the idea that human beings have an inherent sense of right and wrong has intrigued political and religious thinkers. The notion of a “natural� moral law has been a key driver of much Christian political thought in the west. It has helped shape the development of religious freedom and the concept of rights, and its influence on America’s Founding Fathers was fundamental. In today’s post-modern society, however, the concept often prompts confusion and controversy. Even critics who might accept the reality of a moral law in theory wonder...

<p>President Bush announced today that he has nominated the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Centre for consideration to the World Heritage List.</p> <p>The monument includes the islands and waters of the northwestern Hawaiian archipelago and is the nation’s largest protected area. The Mount Vernon, Va., home of George Washington was also nominated to the list. These are the United States’ first nominations to be forwarded for consideration on the World Heritage List since 1994, according to Gov. Linda Lingle.</p>

Conservative Leader Paul Weyrich Dies; First to Lead Heritage

Conservatism’s Obituary Premature by: Jesse Masai, December 04, 2008 The jury is in: the conservative cause may well have taken a beating at the polls last month, but it certainly is not and cannot be dead. “Conservatism is a body of ideas. The Grand Old Party is a political outfit. The GOP is not always conservative,” Heritage Foundation’s president Edwin Feulner said during a recent bloggers briefing at the think-tank. Feulner argued that the movement must get its principles right once again, generate new ideas and market them smartly. “We must not forget that ideas are important. Our friends at...

I have been thinking back on my life and the changes I have seen in my 52+ years on this earth. Many, many technological changes have changed and enriched all of our lives, among other things. But I was especially struck by the social changes. Many for the better, but some decidedly for the worst. Clearly, in today's world, as opposed to the 1950s and 1960s when I was young, our nation has come to grips with itself and opened the door for opportunity to all people, regardless of race, or creed, or gender. Despite the fact that there are...

Perhaps no other custom reveals our nation's original character as clearly as the celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Other countries have adopted similar observances, but America was the first to nationally recognize its dependence on God with a special day set aside for thanksgiving for His wondrous provision and deliverance. Although the exact date of the first American Thanksgiving observance may be uncertain, there is no question that this treasured custom sprang from our deep Judeo-Christian heritage. From early Spanish expeditions in the late 1500s, to a small band of settlers in Maine in 1607, each group held services to give...

The hoopla is over. The people have decided. History has been made. The bonbons are being ordered. The Presidential Cabinet is being revealed, while the cabinets in the dining room of the White House are being measured for new China. Sound the trumpets and clang the cymbals! America has its first African-American President-Elect, and he is indeed both African and American. He is considered “black,” but he is both black and white. The overwhelming support that he received from yellow, black, brown and white will surely put the kibosh on the racist views espoused by all sides of the color...

Reagan Video clips and speeches He had the guts to stand up Every conservative candidate should study him Communicating these timeless ideas so people have ammo at the kitchen table is the key to our future http://www.reagansheritage.org/html/reagan01_21_85.shtml Well, with heart and hand let us stand as one today -- one people under God, determined that our future shall be worthy of our past. As we do, we must not repeat the well-intentioned errors of our past. We must never again abuse the trust of working men and women by sending their earnings on a futile chase after the spiraling demands...

Some people might have done a double-take when they saw an Obama TV ad that aired during primetime television newscasts Oct. 28 suggesting the conservative Heritage Foundation endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s tax proposals. “Even leading conservatives say Obama’s plan is better for the middle class,” the announcer in the ad said, as a quote from an unnamed Heritage Foundation analyst was displayed on the screen, citing the Aug. 15 New York Sun: “…the middle class would likely pay less under Mr. Obama’s plan…” ...more (w/video)...

Andy Martin’s investigative team digs for the truth. Is Obama using his ill grandmother as a beard to conceal his true concern: a release of the original copy of his 1961 birth certificate? The Obama investigation in Hawai’i, Part Two Obama’s Hawai’i Years: The truth finally revealed Obama’s tortured family life and secrets ANDY MARTIN Executive Editor ContrarianCommentary.com “Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct” FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: “OPERATION ALOHA OBAMA” BEGINS TO YIELD UP THE TRUTH ABOUT BARACK OBAMA PART TWO: OBAMA’S FAMILY AND WHAT IT TELLS US ABOUT HIM (THE DOG THAT DOESN’T BARK) HIS GRANDMOTHER’S STRANGE SILENCE IS THE...

HOME SCHOOLERS, PASTORS, AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATORS SACRED BETRAYAL? Shall Baptists lose their identity? Baptist Heritage Briefing by James R. Beller, author of America in Crimson Red. “I have had the wonderful privilege to be a part of James Beller’s briefing on two separate occasions. What Pastor Beller gives in this presentation is essential to everyone that claims to be a true independent Baptist. This presentation makes us aware of the pivotal and important role of our Baptist faith and forefathers in American history. I heartily recommend The Briefing.” -----Pastor Kevin Folger，Cleveland Baptist Temple “In the present confusion over how we...

[Heritage Lecture #1090 -- Delivered April 24, 2008] ... It is likewise an honor to be here tonight and to speak to you of responsibility, because I'm keenly aware of the fact that in this room tonight we have an entire army of crusaders for freedom. ... I admire you and thank you for the hard work that you do. You and your colleagues do this because you love and are dedicated to the simple idea of human liberty. You see it as your birthright, and you fight on its behalf. You understand that man precedes the state, and that...

To what culture does the concept of “cultural property” belong? Who owns this idea? It has, like much material property in the last 50 years, often changed hands. And in doing so, it has also changed meanings and grown in importance. It now affects the development of museums, alters the nature of international commerce and even seems to subsume traditional notions of property. It was brought to modern prominence in 1954 by Unesco as a way of characterizing the special status of monuments, houses of worship and works of art — objects that suffered “grave damage” in “recent armed conflicts.”...

History and heritage - this mean many things to each person.  It can mean a dry and boring lesson at school that appeared to have no relevance to today's world or it can bring up warm rich memories of being taught the importance of the part and how it has shaped our future.  For me I could never get into social history and the various industrial and agriculture revolution but loved learning about the various Kings and Queens of England.   There was a Queen in fact named Eleanor and there is a famous stone cross in London which marks...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Panhandle legislator wants Florida to issue license tags honoring "Confederate Heritage" -- complete with images of Dixie flags and buttons from Rebel uniforms. "It's a part of our history, whether we like it or not," Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, said in an interview with Local 6 News partner Florida Today. "I appreciate the heritage and the good things that people feel about our past." Motorists could pay $25 for the tag, with proceeds going to education programs run by Sons of Confederate Veterans, graveyard location and maintenance, museum exhibits and other cultural activities. The current...

Subject: Devotional "Heritage" Date: Feb 12, 2008 11:21 AM Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Many things exist that we do not know nor do we understand. The human mind is very curious about the things that are unknown. Man has gone to the moon, explored distant lands, excavated through countless layers of dirt, and investigated numerous unknowns all for the sake of discovering that which no one knows. This same...

Racial heritage of six former presidents is questionedTuesday, February 05, 2008 By Monica Haynes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Today, as Sen. Barack Obama takes what he hopes will be one more step toward becoming the nation's first black president, the Internet is filled with stories that state such a milestone already has been reached -- several times over. **SNIP** In addition to Jefferson, the books, magazines and newspaper articles found on the Web name five other U.S. presidents who may have had black ancestry, but never publicly acknowledged it: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite...

For those of you who don't listen to the Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham shows, they are promoting a program that The Heritage Foundation has put together to remind us of what Reagan said, did and stood for. They have set up a page on their website with videos, audio clips and transcripts of speeches that Ronald Reagan gave during his political career. At a time when we are choosing our next nominee for the Presidency, it is a very good idea if we all step back and review the information Heritage is providing. Click here to go to their...

European transnationalism is a utopian dream, Pierre Manent warns. The European Union’s grand project rests on the belief that nationalism is passé, indeed pernicious. Fascism’s mystic nationalism proved, on this view, that the nation-state impedes the spread of human rights, tolerance, and the rational adjudication of disputes—all essential to global peace. The nation-state should therefore give way to organizations like the E.U.: a transnational, secular institution that can bring about peace and prosperity by practicing what French intellectual Chantal Delsol calls “techno-politics”—a rational approach superior to the atavistic passions and superstitions that fired nationalism. But as the political philosopher Pierre...

In an age of cynicism, nothing is sacred and everything is for sale. Religious artifacts are being auctioned off to private collectors in the United States and Europe, writes Jennifer Green. The trend has some asking, 'If this religious heritage is valuable for the Americans, why not us?' CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, the ottawa citizen Ron McDermid is a warden at Gatineau's St. Thomas church. In 1993, thieves stripped the building of its contents, including the church's stained-glass windows. Priests' robes used as paint rags. Magnificent church carvings tossed out for garbage collection. Gold and silver altarware melted down. Chalices for...