Free Republic

Civilization WatchFirst appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC By Orson Scott Card December 17, 2006 Honoring Those Who Died I was on my way home from speaking to officers at an air base, so when, during a brief layover, I saw a young man in uniform waiting for the same flight as me, I thought nothing of it -- I was used to uniforms. It happened that during boarding, we were nearly alone at the back of the plane for a few minutes. We struck up a conversation. This young man was nearing the end of his...

Producer Joel Silver's Silver Pictures has optioned Empire, an upcoming book from bestselling sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, for a big-screen adaptation. The novel is currently slated to hit bookshelves on November 28. According to the Card's official Web site, here is the story of Empire: The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side and militia...

Does anybody here remember when Doonesbury was funny? Never mind. It was funny this past Sunday, in a bitter, ironic kind of way. The comic strip, by Garry Trudeau, shows a professor teaching a class, in which he compares two presidents -- Bush and Clinton. Of Bush he says, "The first president initiates a bloody, costly, unending war on false premises ... and approves covert policies of illegal detentions, kangaroo courts, extraordinary renditions, torture, and warrantless wiretapping of thousands of Americans." Of Clinton, he says, "The second president lies about hooking up with an intern. Question: Which one should be...

I believe in two-party government. I especially believe in it when it prevents Congress from doing anything – because that prevents them from doing stupid things. Of course, the Republicans were already doing a fine job of keeping even one-party government in a permanent logjam. Plus, the Republicans were also proving themselves just as unable to remain worthy of power while holding it as the Democrats did during their decades of dominance from 1954 to 1994.This election proves only that the monolithically leftwing mainstream media can make the public believe we are losing a war that we are winning. As...

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror. And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election. If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one. Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the...

Civilization WatchFirst appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC By Orson Scott Card September 17, 2006 Homework, Part I The Worst Job in the World What if you had a really lousy job? You're only employed for seven hours a day, but you have to ride the bus for half an hour each way. While you're there, they only let you go to the bathroom at certain times. You only have ten minutes to get from one work station to another, and somehow you also have to use the toilet and get your new work materials from a...

A new book by David Horowitz and Richard Poe has enraged the Left and alarmed many conservatives. It exposes the machinations of a radical clique working at the highest levels of government and finance to undermine American power. That book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. It hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week in print. Here to tell us about The Shadow Partyis co-author Richard Poe, our esteemed colleague at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, where he serves as director of research. Mr....

August 26, 2006... Operation Street Corner Action Report! Boots on the Ground for the soldiers in the fieldOSC goes to the Great Patriot PA Biker Event!– A hot day outside of Monaca, PA –Aug. 26, 2006, Monaca, PA... Vets for the Truth / Boot Murtha took its traveling OSC displays to the Rolling Thunder (PA Chapter 4) Great Patriot Biker Event. The event was held just outside Monaca on a great strip of land right along Route 18 at the Midway Bar & Grill. We were able to meet multitudes of great people and American patriots and discussed issues one-on-one with our...

I think it's about time we remembered that words are supposed to have meanings. It's sort of a quiet agreement among all the speakers of a particular language, that you try to use a word according to its agreed-upon meaning. For instance, I recently heard a Democratic congressman refer to the War on Terror -- specifically, the Iraq campaign -- as "catastrophic." He seemed to be a reasonably educated guy. I think if a doctor told him, "What you have is a catastrophic illness," he would understand what the word meant and prepare for death or permanent disability. Or if...

OSC Show on the Road!- Beautiful Day in Johnstown – August 22nd found 12th District OSC Director Nikki Sheppick and her Second-in-Command, District Assistant Laura Hough (pronounced "Huff," for those who are wondering), traveling to Johnstown for one of their traveling Operation Street Corner display events.  The day was beautiful, and Johnstown has a very nice Central Park with large beautiful shade trees.  We were in the nicest of environments. Two of our Johnstown colleagues, Harry & Tony, volunteered to accompany us during our 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM event.  Incidentally, the Johnstown City Manager was most cooperative in giving us permission...

July 29, 2006... Rain Day Festival in PA: first planned Vets For The Truth / Boot Murtha & Operation Street Corner (OSC) activity by OSC District 12 Exec. Director Nikki A.C. Sheppick We enjoyed ourselves immensely that this special Annual Greene County event, which has been taking place here in Pennsylvania since 1874. The day was cloudy with the threat of rain - but it never did - at least in Waynesburg, PA, during the Rain Day festivities.  The VFTT - OSC was blessed with a nice corner space and the town officials were not in any way non-supportive of...

      |     World WatchFirst appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC By Orson Scott Card July 16, 2006 Know Thy Enemy I do hope that the readers of this column already know that no decent person could ever advocate that Israel negotiate with Hamas and Hezbollah or give in to their demands in the slightest in order to get their kidnapped soldiers back. The slightest concession would only guarantee that more and more Israelis would be kidnapped in the future. The only way to extinguish kidnapping is to make sure that it never,...

When our young men (and women) volunteer to serve in our military, it is usually with an eye to serving their country, even at the risk of their own lives. In the process of their service, they will take orders, constantly. Sometimes those orders will come from people they respect – even love. Sometimes, though, the orders will come from people they dislike, or disdain, or fear or hate. Yet the ones who last in the military learn to submerge their own will and keep silent, except when some truly outrageous or dangerous or illegal order is given – whereupon...

Poor Abdul Rahman. He lived in Germany, where there is freedom of religion. He forgot that freedom of religion only applies to non-Muslims who convert to other faiths. Muslims aren't allowed to follow their individual consciences. If you're born a Muslim, then in your entire life you will never, never have a choice about what religion to belong to. Because if you convert from Islam to another faith, good Muslims have a right -- no, a duty -- to kill you. Oh, wait. How can I say that? I keep forgetting -- we've been assured ten thousand times since 9/11...

WorldWatchFirst appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC By Orson Scott Card February 12, 2006 Three Books That Name Names Bernard Goldberg, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37). Kate O'Beirne, Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports David Horowitz, The Professors: the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America We Americans have been through massive cultural and social revolutions in the past two generations. We've drastically revised the way we marry, the way we have sex, the way we educate...

I keep wondering why I'm getting flashbacks to the 1960s. I never took any hallucinogenic drugs. And yet I keep hearing people on TV saying we need to bring the troops home now. Of course, back in the 60s, the people saying that were all wearing long hair and, if they were of the guy persuasion, beards; now it's people in suits. So it occurred to me that maybe they're the ones having the flashbacks. They really think this war is Vietnam. Having romanticized the anti-war movement of the 1960s, they think they're wrapping themselves in the mantle of heroes....

This is the most provocative article by Orson Scott Card I've ever read. But don't rush with the judgment and flame throwing before you read till the end. If you just skim the beginning, you might think he makes a conclusion that he is NOT making... A bit of a spoiler from the very end: "...I pick A. I think B and C are both vile. That’s my opinion. But at least I took the available information into account when I reached it. Mark my words, many people are going to be outraged at my opinion – I can see...

A week before the London bombings, I was in England for a US Defense Department-sponsored conference on the future of weapons of mass destruction. It was held in Sussex, as part of the Wilton Park conference series, which is well attended by diplomats and military people from many European and Middle Eastern countries. This time, they also brought along some science fiction writers, in the hope that we would actually know something about the future. (Whether we delivered on that hope is another question. The other guys did great. As for me: I warned them in advance that I wouldn’t...

When the bombs went off in London, you could practically feel the relief on the part of those who hate the war in Iraq. Of course, they regretted the deaths of so many innocents, and of course they were outraged at those who committed the act. But they also felt vindicated, and some of them said so. They gloated a bit that Rumsfeld had recently said that Al Qaeda was on the ropes, so to speak. Here was proof positive, they believed, that our war in Iraq – far from limiting terrorism – had created new recruits and spread it...

Rocket-maker Orbital Sciences Corp. said yesterday that federal government agents executed search warrants Thursday at its Dulles headquarters and at a design and manufacturing facility near Phoenix.