Free Republic

The U.S. Constitution, as its framers understood it, was a means to an end. It was crafted and adopted for the sake of achieving the natural-law principles referred to in the Declaration of Independence. The progressives understood this very clearly as well. The robust regulatory and redistributive aims of the progressive policy agenda were inevitably at odds with the natural-law theory of the founding. This basic fact makes understandable Woodrow Wilson’s admonition (in an address ostensibly honoring Thomas Jefferson) that, “if you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.” Do not, in other words,...

The US Constitution is much more important, and in much greater danger than most people realize. I will discuss both issues in this article. Some people believe, and I am one of them, that there is one short passage in our founding documents that encapsulates, enshrines, and defines what is so unique and important about the US Constitution, and the United States of America. Oddly enough it is not to be found in the Constitution at all – it is in “The Declaration of Independence.” I am talking about the preamble to the Declaration – specifically the first sentence. Without...

Preface A wise man named Francis Bacon once said that knowledge is power. Certainly this is true when dealing with foreign, and often hostile, ideologies that confront our Western civilization and way of life. One of these ideologies is Islam. Americans, and Westerners in general, whether Christian or not, are all too often still dangerously ill-informed about Islam. Many people in the West hear and believe the propaganda promoted by various Muslim groups, but fail to search out the facts about the history, theology, and psychology of the Islamic phenomenon. While knowledge may be power, ignorance can render a person,...

Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be...

“Twas the week before 9/11 and all thru the house, not a creature was stirring…. except for all the creatures.” ~ Me In exactly one week it will be thirteen years since that terrible day. We all remember where we were that day. I myself was deployed. My team and I had just got back onto base after a 3 day gig in the field, and the events were playing out right in front of us on a shitty little CRT TV mounted high in a corner. Nobody was tired anymore and chow didn’t seem so urgent. I have skirted...

Presidential Candidacy of Leftist Pentecostal in Brazil Shoots Up After Suspicious Plane Crash And Bolsters Globalist Interests Pro-business socialists versus anti-business socialists By Julio Severo Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist whose research on security issues I first knew in my favorite conservative website WND, tackles the skyrocketing rise of Marina Silva, a radical environmentalist, socialist who is the most likely candidate to defeat the socialist incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, in the Brazilian presidential election. Marina Silva and Leonardo Boff, of Liberation Theology Madsen has some interesting points, but in other respects he fails to see what is obvious for us...

Smartguy @Gr8_guy Follow The top Hamas commander that was assassinated by the IDF this evening is Mohammed Yassin Dalou (Dalu?) Head of the Hamas Rocket division 2:16 PM - 19 Aug 2014 IMRA @IMRA_UPDATES Follow Speculation on Israel Radio that Mohammed Deif was killed and this explains the massive missile attack 2:15 PM - 19 Aug 2014   Alon Ben-David @alonbd Follow לפני הירי: נסיון חיסול של בכיר חמאס בשייח רדואן. בישראל מסרבים לאשר האם מדובר Translation: Before the firing: An assassination attempt on a senior Hamas member in Sheikh Radwan. In Israel they will not confirm whether it's...

The U.N. Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian Cause By Julio Severo By a United Nations resolution, 2014 is the “Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” an occasion that has been used by the U.N. to organize special activities along with governments and non-governmental organizations to promote the Palestinian cause. The resolution was passed on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in 2013, a very busy year for the U.N., which adopted a total of 21 resolutions singling out Israel for criticism. In contrast, the rest of the world combined received just 4 of such condemnatory resolutions...

I can't be the only one who has been pre-approved for the Quick-Silver Card,then I get in in the mail,a week later I am Pre-Approved for another one.So I applied for the second one,I was approved!,then today,I got my approval for another Quick-Silver Card!,I guess Capital One has so many millions of customers that they just cannot maintain their records to the extent where they finally stop sending pre-approvals for the same cards we already received.

People for the American Way’s Leftist Diatribe Against a Brazilian Conservative By Julio Severo The American Way should be to expose and destroy tyrannies, especially socialism. But do not tell that to the People for the American Way (PFAW), which, according to WorldNetDaily, is “an atheist socialist organization which, through publications like its ‘Right Wing Watch,’ dedicates itself to the destruction of conservatives in general.” Former leftist U.S. Presidente Bill Clinton in People for the American Way The latest attack from “Right Wing Watch” was against me, Julio Severo, in a piece entitled “BarbWire Pundit Defends Brazil’s Past Violent...

Do Christians Have a Duty to Remove Bad Officials From Office? In the previous article we asked, “Do Americans have a right to oppose unjust authority?” Such a right was obviously assumed by the Founders. We likewise examined whether Christians have such a right, as well. In answer, we found the earliest theories regarding what became Resistance Theory resulted from the assumptions of the Protestant Reformation being applied to society during various crises involving early Protestant communities. Therefore, whether such a right truly exists, the entire theory was proposed by Protestants, using biblical, historic and classical arguments, ostensibly to achieve...

U.S. Betrays Military Men Who Protected Brazil from Communist Threat By Julio Severo Henry Kissinger once said, “In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal.” Brazilian military officials, who made significant sacrifices to protect Brazil from the massive Soviet, Chinese and Cuban communist threat in the 1960s and 1970s, will know what Kissinger meant. According to the Brazilian paper O Globo, by a resolution of President Barack Obama, the U.S. government has created a task force to identify documents produced between 1964 and 1984 regarding...

The canonical Bible is filled with mysterious characters, many of whom drop in for a cameo, do their thing, and then slide out, never to be heard from again. Some are merely extras, but some have a contextual presence that begs further examination. And some are, well, just weird. 10 MelchizedekProbably the single most mysterious figure in the Bible, Melchizedek was a priest-king of Salem (later known as Jerusalem) in the time of Abram (Abraham), suggesting a religious organization, complete with ritual and hierarchy, that predated the Jewish nation and their priestly lineage from the tribe of Levi. He is...

I was checking out WW2 stats, and came across research on the 30 greatest atrocities of the 20th century. An estimated 55 million died in WW2. In addition, 20 million died under Stalin, 40 million under Mao Zedong, 1.65 million under the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, and 400,000 under North Korea. The combined 62 million total tops WW2 by 7 million. The kicker is that, with the current U.S. population approaching 320 million, that figure of 62 million, if applied to the United States, would mean that 1/5, that is, 20% of us, would have perished!

Is Brazil preparing itself to break off its ties with Israel? Israel slams “diplomatic dwarf'” Brazil for recalling envoy to protest Israeli anti-terrorist operation By Jerusalem Post e Julio Severo The Brazilian socialist government on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations in protest over the IDF’s (Israel Defense Force) operation against the Islamic terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A statement put out by the Brazilian foreign ministry said that Brazil considers “escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine” as unacceptable. “We strongly condemn the disproportionate use of force by Israel in the Gaza Strip.” The...

The price of happiness depends a lot on where you live, according to a new report by the investment group Advisor Perspectives. The analysis is based on the now-famous work by Princeton researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, who found that higher incomes only make people happier to a point. Up to about $75,000 per year, the more a household earns, the happier people are. After that benchmark, however, additional income "buys life satisfaction but not happiness." The team separated these two issues by distinguishing fun from happiness. More money still leads people to have more life experiences and greater...

In its recently released report titled Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology, the Pew Research Center has provided conservatives an excellent opportunity to utilize their findings to specifically target our message and utilize resources wisely to capture disaffected Democratic Party voters. The report is one of the most comprehensive analysis of the trends and attitudes which drive the voting decisions of various subsets of the American public. In what will be the first of a running series, Dignitas News Service will provide an overview of the report as well as detailed explanation of the classifications of voter which Pew...

For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young: Marquis de Lafayette, 18 James Monroe, 18 Gilbert Stuart, 20 Aaron Burr, 20 Alexander Hamilton, 21 Betsy Ross, 24 James Madison, 25 This is kind of blowing my mind...because of the compression of history, I'd always assumed all these people were around the same age. But in thinking about it, all startups need young people...Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of...

Happy Fourth of July, America! Never forget what Thomas Jefferson called “the Spirit of 1776” – a sentiment rooted in the abiding belief that all men are created equal and desire freedom. Reagan invoked that same spirit in his famous speech “A Time for Choosing” when he urged us not to “abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” Today and every day, let’s remember the “Spirit of 1776” and celebrate Independence, not government! May that love of liberty burn...

We shoot two types of .270 Winchester (6.8mm) rounds at an AR500 Armor chest plate. The first is a "LEAD-FREE" California-compliant bronze tip round. I HEARD these rounds are armor-piercing. (unintended consequence of bad legislature that doesn't think things through?) The second round uses a "normal" ballistic-tipped 110 grain bullet that has and higher velocity than the lead-free round. Both rounds EXCEED the rating of a Level III plate. (sometimes called "Type III) A level III plate is rated for a .308 round going around 2800 FPS. How will this plate hold up to faster rounds that go beyond the...