Free Republic

Even today, sources on inventions list six by Franklin that are still in active use today. One of those sits in my back hall, cheerfully and economically heating the back of my home – the Franklin stove. Another sits on the bridge of my nose as I write this – a pair of bifocals. But this is about Franklin’s greatest invention, one that the lists never mention because it is mere words, not a physical object. Franklin made seven trips to Europe, as a diplomat and scholar. He was welcomed into all the learned societies that existed in Europe then....

Freeper Investigation: Original Intent and Constitutional Jurisprudence by Jean F. Drew English and Anglo-American law’s core principle is the opposition to abusive power as exercised by the state. As Dan Gifford writes in “The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason,” “The law is not the law regardless if it be good, bad, or indifferent. There is a higher moral law, originating within ancient Jewish law, which requires individual responsibility for opposing evil and promoting goodness. It is from this basic tenet that English law and Anglo-American law embody the following principle: The individual has rights against the...

Did Pfizer Inc, purchase The Constitution of the United States of America? ***************** Did Pfizer purchase the government of the State of Connecticut? Pfizer's connections with former Connecticut Governor John Rowland are a matter of public record: "John Rowland, Pfizer's agent in Hartford, became Connecticut's first Governor to plead guilty to taking bribes, yet persisted in referring to them as "gratuities." Pfizer drove hundreds from their homes and businesses outside its new research facility. State and local taxpayers got stuck with a massive tab." "Rowland gave Pfizer everything it wanted in New Haven, on land which many had assumed would...

Liberty hangs in a noose, in the name of 'public use' Wednesday, June 29, 2005 Cloaked in justice and disguised by the mind-numbing language of the law, a strange and dangerous hybrid of fascism and socialism came to the United States last week. It was a group of "liberal" Supreme Court justices who gave fasci-socialism the green light, while it was the four conservative justices who stood firm against tyranny in favor of the individual rights of the "little guy." As the nation buzzes this week with news about a potential Supreme Court opening, last week's case of Kelo vs....

RALEIGH – How dare he exercise his freedom of choice? He’s denying me my freedom to choose! Judging by a range of controversies in North Carolina right now, plenty of people exhibit just this sort of confusion about the political definition of freedom. That’s the first problem, by the way: when I say the political definition of freedom, I mean to distinguish it from other, everyday uses of the term. But the distinction is often lost. The government does not forbid my son Alex from eating his dessert before his vegetables. Thus, as a political matter, he enjoys an expansive...

Locke’s text on the limits of legislative power should be on every minister’s wallJOHN LOCKE died on October 28, 1704, 300 years ago. I have twice given a lecture on Locke. The first time was in 1977, to the staff of the People’s Daily in Beijing. I explained that Locke had the same relationship to the theory of liberal democracy that Karl Marx had to socialism. I can still remember the translator speaking of a character who emerged as “Johnny Lockey”. The second occasion occurred this month, when I spoke to a large village audience in Publow church in Somerset....

Some of the email and comments I have had to my posting about the debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment has prompted me to define my position, from a libertarian perspective, on defending the current definition of marriage even to the point of a Constitutional Amendment if necessary. Here is my position. I consider myself a Christian libertarian. I believe that ultimately marriage is an institution ordained and sanctified by God Himself, and not by government institutions. But my governmental ideology on the subject is such that I believe that governments are instituted among men to provide arbitration against what...

I consider myself a Christian libertarian. I believe that ultimately marriage is an institution ordained and sanctified by God Himself, and not by government institutions. But my governmental ideology on the subject is such that I believe that governments are instituted among men to provide arbitration against what I call "excessive liberty" defined as the collision of two individuals rights in willful disobedience to the Golden Rule and the Law of Nature. When individual rights meet in a violent manner, government must play a role in adjudicating the dispute. This was the dilemma of Moses for which his father-in-law Jethro...

ALLIES.........And The Misinformed I apologize to my vast e-mail audience for misstating the operational cost of our cute little uptown trolley in last week's e-mail. New figures from the city reveal the cost will be $1.1 million per year, not $750,000. With ridership projections remaining at 100,000, the cost per ride is now projected to be $11.00! The rider will pay $1.00----you, the taxpayer will pay $10.00! Here's a very real example of how it will work: a rider from the uptown area, who chooses to have lunch in the Southend, will pay $1.00 each way and you will subsidize...

Religious Intolerance and the ACLU By Robert Wolf Amendment I of the Constitution of the US reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” and continues with “or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This is the so-called Establishment clause we hear so much about. The phrase separation of Church and State we hear so often comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson 21 years later in which he...

A Special Message from the Desk Of: John Hood, President August 21, 2003 Come Joins Us In The “Locker Room” New weblog to host discussion and debate on public policy issues I’m writing today to alert you and other regular visitors to the John Locke Foundation’s web sites — including www.CarolinaJournal.com, www.NorthCarolinaAtWar.com, and www.JohnLocke.org — about a new Internet feature we unveiled this morning: a weblog on public policy issues of interest to North Carolinians. “Blogs,” as they have come to be known, are an increasingly popular way for a variety of individuals and organizations to communicate with each other,...

(Source, Charles F. Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams [1851] Vol. 6, p. 3-4)There have been three periods in the history of England, in which the principles of government have been anxiously studied, and very valuable productions published, which, at this day, if they are not wholly forgotten in their native country, are perhaps more frequently read abroad than at home.The first of these periods was that of the Reformation, as early as the writings of Machiavel himself, who is called the great restorer of the true politics.  The "Shorte Treatise of Politick Power, and of the True Obedience...

When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson took a little editorial liberty with the phrase "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Consequently, if we modern Americans are to fully understand our own personal rights and liberties, this requires a little explanation. Back in the days of the Founding Fathers, every family was said to have two well studied books in their library. The most important best seller around 1775, of course, was "The Bible." The second best seller in the Colonies was "Blackstone's Commentaries on The Law," then a new three volume set on English common law....

John Locke was an Oxford scholar, medical researcher and physician, political operative, economist and idealogue for a revolutionary movement, as well as being one of the great philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. His monumental Essay Concerning Human Understanding aims to determine the limits of human understanding. Earlier writers such as Chillingworth had argued that human understanding was limited, Locke tries to determine what those limits are. We can, he thinks, know with certainty that God exists. We can also know about morality with the same precision we know about mathematics, because we are the creators of...