Free Republic

In Politico Magazine, but discussed at the National Review. Our anthem is too militaristic? Um, we're not even in the top fifteen. Here are the first few stanzas of the French national anthem. I've bolded my favorite parts. Let's go children of the fatherland, The day of glory has arrived! Against us tyranny's Bloody flag is raised! (repeat) In the countryside, do you hear The roaring of these fierce soldiers? They come right to our armsTo slit the throats of our sons, our friends! (Refrain) Grab your weapons, citizens! Form your battalions! Let us march! Let us march!Let their impure...

“You’ve got to give it to Ron Paul," Palin said. "Whether you agree with everything he says or not, at least he is one there in Congress trying to make our President stick to the law and understand that Congress does have a role to play in these foreign policy decisions that are made and Ron Paul, I think hit the nail on the head, when he came out and said Obama had better be careful when he interjects himself and our country in other nations’ business.”

When then-Sen. Barack Obama made a short video for the "peace caucus" delegates to the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, he captured the enthusiastic support of his party's pacifist wing. It was enough to propel him to the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton's ad -- showing a red telephone ringing at 3 a.m. -- only emphasized to party pacifists that Obama was their man. And, of course, leading antiwar figures like George Soros heavily bankrolled MoveOn.org and other liberal media outlets -- all echoing the same pacifist line. Pacifism -- as the name implies -- ought to lead to peace. But it too...

With Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington, there's a lot of talk about the rise of China as an economic and military power. But the Chinese may have only a small window in time to assert global dominance -- and Chinese leaders have to know it. China is, perhaps, twenty years from the start of a demographic implosion, one that will cause enormous internal strains, economically and socially. Could awareness of the hard demographic realities that lie ahead for China drive the Chinese to advance their interests militarily, if need be, before China is hampered by an aging population?...

To hear them tell it, the officers who apprehended 39-year-old David Pyles on March 8 thwarted a mass murder. The cops “were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation,” the Medford, Oregon, police department announced in a press release. The subject had been placed on administrative leave from his job not long before, was “very disgruntled,” and had recently purchased several firearms. “Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers,” the press release said. Fortunately, Pyles “voluntarily” turned himself over to police custody,...

In recent times, that is, during June of 2009, President Barack Obama has recoiled at efforts at fighting the oppressors in Iran. He has allowed the political situation in Iran to escalate into the crisis it is today. At the time of this writing, protests in the streets have broken out over the rigged election. The red flags should have been flying in the Commander in Chief’s face already. Iran has been advancing their nuclear weapon program at a dangerously rapid rate, constantly waving the fact at the West. The rest has been very well documented. Political corruption has been...

Peace activists want equal access to Los Angeles high schools to counter military recruiters they describe as "car salesmen" bent on meeting quotas. The Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools says it's vital for students to have unvarnished information about military service. The coalition promotes nonviolent alternatives to military service. Group coordinator Arele Inouye says recruiters "have a quota and it's their job to get students to sign up. So just like a car salesman, they're going to say everything they can to get students to sign up." The group's access proposal could be considered by the school board next...

"Trust the president." That was the Bush administration's main defense of the president's bizarre choice of corporate lawyer Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court. But the administration also had a backup rationale: as D.C.'s Hill newspaper reported, in an October 3, 2005, conference call with conservative leaders, Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman stressed "the need to confirm a justice who will not interfere with the administration's management of the war on terrorism." It was a bit unsettling to hear that proposition stated so baldly, but no one who has followed the administration's drive to expand executive...

Divine Allah sat on a red plastic chair inside a one-room efficiency apartment in Trenton, trying to explain the need for black militarism in one of New Jersey's poorest cities. In a little more than a month since opening a Trenton office, Allah, the party's national youth leader, has met with street gangs, held food drives and traveled to the storm-torn Gulf Coast and clashed with police over alleged harassment. Like its predecessor, the New Black Panthers are no new adversary to law enforcement. The original Oakland-formed Black Panther Party, which died out in the 1970s, rose to fame in...

  China’s economy is a stunted giantPeter ZhangBrookesNews.ComMonday 21 March 2005 Many American conservatives pay a great deal of attention to China’s military ambitions and potential — and so they should. But to do so while ignoring China’s economic situation is to show poor judgement. Beijing fully understands, even if most of these conservatives do not, that to successfully wage full-scale war against a highly advanced economy requires an economy at a similar stage of development. When several years ago Jiang Zemin stated that we “should focus our limited funds on cutting-edge areas of military science and technology” he certainly...

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city’s militarism Partially uncovered figurine, carved in jade, found in connection with three unbound, seated bodies and other objects at the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage (the offering was presumably made in the construction of the sixth stage), circa 350 AD. This object is notable in that it is carved from jade that originated in Guatemala, and appears to be Mayan in style. Other jade objects on top of the figurine are beads and earspools. A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon...

Eisenhower warned us Rise of militarism under George W. Bush puts America on the road to ruin By JOHN L. GRAHAM Professor of International Business, Graduate School of Management, U.C. Irvine It was in an article in the National Interest in 1989 that Francis Fukuyama boldly asked if we had reached "The End of History." His notion was that free-enterprise democracy had finally defeated both communism and fascism. There would be no more real arguments about the best way to organize society. That was decided. But now, since George W. Bush's election, the ideological/political battle has begun anew. This time,...

<p>It was in an article in the National Interest in 1989 that Francis Fukuyama boldly asked if we had reached "The End of History." His notion was that free-enterprise democracy had finally defeated both communism and fascism. There would be no more real arguments about the best way to organize society. That was decided.</p>

Before China launched the Shenzhou V spacecraft, a struggle developed between former president and military commission chairman Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao regarding who should attend the launch. In the end, it was Hu who appeared at the launch site, and Premier Wen Jiabao who declared the return a success. Jiang was merely the third person to deliver his congratulatory speech. Everything progressed according to the "rules" in order to prove that the party and the nation carry more weight than the army. Jiang is at a disadvantage in these intra-party struggles. Looking at the bigger picture, however, the...

America is still a great country, and it would be cruel to judge it by its patriots. I mean the sort of “patriots” who think the way to express your love for this country is to insult other countries. The events of 9/11 have brought the nastiest jingoists out of the woodwork, and their most toxic venom has been directed against France for opposing war on Iraq. Now that the war has failed in its express aims, the French are hated worse than ever. After all, they have committed the extremely annoying faux pas of being proved right by events....