Free Republic

Tyler Weyer and his fellow seniors at Republic High School began considering possible commencement speakers last fall...But Weyer had a crazy thought. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s just get Sarah Palin,’ ” said Weyer, the 17-year-old senior class president at Republic High...Then came another e-mail from Palin’s people – this time to set up a phone call with him and school officials...On April 18, Weyer and school officials had the phone call with Palin’s representative, and learned that Palin would be coming to graduation... Anderson’s priority is to preserve the event as a commencement ceremony – something focused on the students...

In an interview with Bloomberg TV from the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, former Vice President Al Gore claims American democracy has been "hacked." Gore also opined on former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently commenting that she regretted her decision in Bush v. Gore. "[America] has been hacked. That is a computer term when the operating system of a computer is taken over and the computer does things the owner does not want it to. That is what has been happening to American democracy. You have 90% of the people in favor of background checks for gun...

America, weÂ’re told from a young age, is all about democracy, and democracy is all about choosing whom you want to be your representatives and holding them accountable. This seems like an entirely uncontroversial idea, but a surprising number of Republican politicians would like to do away with this right, and return the country to an older era when Americans didnÂ’t directly elect their representatives in Washington.Until 1913 and the ratification of the 17th Amendment, Americans didnÂ’t actually elect senators, state legislators did. The change seems unquestionably positive, but Rep. Jeff Flake, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for a...

For those of you who do not know, especially young people, I am compelled to inform you of the generally un-known truth that the word "Liberal" has a proud heritage and was originally a word that described men who were the political opposites of modern "Liberals." The word "Liberal" was forcibly stolen and corrupted by evil men who intentionally perverted the use and meaning of the word. In the long forgotten past, the word "Liberal" described honorable and principled men who held to a philosophy of government that advocated Constitutional Republicanism. Constitutional Republicanism is a type of government almost unknown...

 "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."  -- Article IV, Section 4, the United States Constitution What is a REAL REPUBLICAN? A REAL REPUBLICAN is an American who adheres politically, in word and deed, to the original natural law moral principles of our republic, to the sworn duty to support the stated purposes and explicit provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and is firmly committed to the preservation of representative self-government. What are the original principles of our republic? Those principles are summed up best in our nation's charter, the Declaration...

How often have you heard people refer to America as a Democracy? When was the last time that you heard America referred to as a Republic? There is a very good reason that our Pledge of Allegiance refers to our country as a Republic and there is a very good reason that our Declaration of Independence and our constitution do not even mentioned the word "democracy". Many people are under the false impression our form of government is a democracy, or representative democracy. This is of course completely untrue. The Founders were extremely knowledgeable about the issue of democracy and...

The president of the Central African Republic has fled the country's capital and rebels have seized control of the city, a government official said Sunday. President Francois Bozize crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a spokesman for the government's territorial administration minister. He declined to disclose Bozize's location Sunday. "Central Africans are waiting for the new president to be named," Ngbapo said in a written statement. Word of Bozize's surprise departure came as violence erupted in the capital, Bangui. Witnesses reported hours of gunfire, and Ngbapo said at least seven civilians were killed as rebels...

No idea of who this guy is, but he does a great job of making the message clear..

"Second Term Begins With a Sweeping Agenda for Equality," ran the eight-column banner in which The Washington Post captured the essence of Obama's second inaugural. There he declared: "What binds this nation together ... what makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago." Obama then quoted our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit...

It has long been understood that there is something peculiar, even paradoxical, about conservatism in America. American conservatism is different from conservatism in other countries, even those countries which were the original source of many other American ideas and ideals, i.e., the countries of Europe. Indeed, the very term “American conservatism” is something of an oxymoron. For most Europeans who came to America, the whole purpose of their difficult and disruptive journey to the New World was not to conserve European institutions but to leave them behind and to create something new, often an entirely new life and even a...

The recent election loss at a time when every economic indicator over the previous four years should have catapulted Romney to victory, started me to seriously think; not think about Romney’s failures, not about what the conservative movement should have done or about two parties which were once upon a time closer at their furthest distance than they were even in FDR’s time (and that says a lot). In fact other than 1860 we have never been so dissimilar and as a people, so divided. A thought often wonders about its origin as much as what it is about; something...

Prepaid wireless carrier Republic Wireless has been offering its $19 per month, unlimited everything, prepaid smartphone plan since about this time last year. At the time, though, there were a few catches; you had to buy a very low-end smartphone from them, you had to use its Hybrid Calling technology for most of your calls, and you could only get in if you were lucky enough to be accepted to an exclusive "beta wave." Since then, Republic Wireless has upgraded to the slightly more modern Motorola Defy XT as its flagship smartphone model, and has changed to allow unlimited calling,...

Our opponents in the gun control movement, when they do try to argue down to the philosophical underpinnings of the gun culture in this country, do little more than display their stunning ignorance of history. I’ll ignore for a moment the utterly false notion that self-defense was never mentioned by any of the founders (Adams mentioned it, several founders carried pistols for self-defense, and it’s mentioned in many state analogues to the 2nd Amendment), and concentrate instead of the notion that militia in the colonial or early republic was anything like the top-down organized instrument of state power that our...

The response is attributed to BENJAMIN FRANKLIN—at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation—in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention. McHenry’s notes were first published in The American Historical Review, vol. 11, 1906, and the anecdote on p. 618 reads: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.” ― Daniel Webster

A brilliant video to share this election day! America: A Republic, If You Can Keep It. A Warning From Benjamin Franklin On The Very First Day

Does voter fraud actually exist? If you ask members of the Obama administration, Democratic lawmakers or the left-leaning media, they often argue it's a myth concocted by Republicans to suppress Democratic turnout. Even U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called voter fraud "a problem that does not really exist." But what you won't see in most of the nation's headlines is the series of explosive investigations by patriot James O'Keefe and his nonprofit, Project Veritas. In stunning video footage (called "DNC Staffer Assists Double Voting In Support of Obama" on YouTube), a top Obama campaign worker gleefully helps an undercover...

Is America descending into a dependency state, where the majority uses its voting power to demand government services from taxpayers? New research from Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reveals that this reality may already be here, with more than 107 million Americans on some form of means-tested government welfare. ... most voting-age Americans do not pay income taxes — approximately 50.6 percent. That includes 53.91 million Americans who pay nothing in income taxes, and another 64.7 million who get refunds in excess of what was owed. That’s 118.61 million out of 234.6 million Americans 18...

First, kudos to Mitt Romney for choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. Now, the danger: Romney, Ryan, their surrogates, their supporters and the American people will continue to treat Election 2012 as just another contest to determine whose hand is at the helm of state for the next four years. No, this election is for keeps. If Barack Obama doesn't lose his bid for a second term, he and his vast, left-wing support network of Marx-inspired think tanks, strategists and elected officials will fulfill Obama's 2008 campaign promise to "fundamentally" transform this nation, thus bringing the American experiment in...

............ur collapse is real, but in a vast country of 300 million people, the long, agonizing shuffle up to Lover’s Leap is hard to grasp. It happens in drips and drabs, and while all of us instinctively know that we’ll soon walk hand-in-hand to the Tipping Point of No Return, daily life offers us myraid opportunities to just adapt and acquiesce ever so slightly. So what if Pepco, after not having been able to turn my power back on for five days, wants to jack up my monthly electricity bill by $5.50? It’s only another $66 per year. I can...

June 26, 2012 A Statesman in Congress To the Members of the 112th Congress: This Friday marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Henry Clay (June 29, 1852). With only a few years excepted, Clay served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1803 until his death almost 50 years later. When he died, he was the most famous American of his day and received many, many eulogies. One of them came from a little-known, former one-term Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who eulogized Clay as "my beau ideal of a statesman." In calling Clay a "statesman,"...

The year was 1968 and my earliest memory was that of my mother picking me up. She was scared...terrified. I didn't know why mom was so scared but when you're a small child, parents screaming and shouting leaves an indelible mark on you. "They are coming for us...we must leave." My parents were part of the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in the 1960's. Dad was a respected doctor, mom was a nurse. After suffering the tyranny of the Nazis, seeing a once proud and industrial country turned into a Communist hell hole, my parents decided to stand up for increased...

I submitted a post on September 26 of this year entitled, “Has America Been Defeated Without a Shot Being Fired?”. Since then our leaders in Washington have given themselves the power over citizens property and their money by way of controlling our financial institutions. All of America is outraged and calling it ‘socialism’ but, I believe, it goes much deeper and is more sinister than socialism. It is the first implementation of Communism. Since President Reagan brought the Soviet Union to it’s knees by using their economic system against them, the Soviet Communists along with Communist China learned a valuable...

America is in uncharted territory now that Citizens United has taken hold in the 2012 elections. It has some people questioning whether or not the United States of America is still a democracy. Since the Supreme Court declared corporations human beings (people) in the 2009 Citizens United case, more than U.S. elections have changed. Millionaires, corporations, and secret donor Super PACs are now allowed to spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the outcome of U.S. political campaigns. The majority of Citizens United funding is coming from conservative groups that are backing Republican candidates. With enough negative TV ads...

Our differences with islam derive from within the roots of our national being, Christianity. It does not matter if one is agnostic or atheist; every American should be thankful our earliest explorers and settlers were Christian and not muslim. Fortunately, there was little danger of that happening, for the act of discovery is anathema to islam, as the following will show. Creation itself is unappealing to islam. The first evidence is their view of holy scripture. Understand that Mohammed is not the muslim Jesus. We believe in the Incarnation, the taking on of human form by Jesus. Muslims believe in...

Perhaps everyone in the eighteenth century could have agreed that in theory no State was more beautiful than a republic, whose whole object by definition was the good of the people. Yet everyone knew it was a fragile beauty indeed. It was axiomatic that no society could hold together without the obedience of its members to the legally constituted authority. In a monarchy the complicated texture of the society, “the magnificence, costly equipage and dazzling splendors” lavished on the prince, the “multitude of criminal laws, with severe penalties, the very rigor of the unitary authority often with the aid of...

Elected leaders in America do not rule, the law rules. Politicians are mere custodians of the law, and when they promote notions such as a “living constitution” what they are really wanting is the rule of law to be replaced by the rule of man. Our Republic rests on the universal truths espoused by The Declaration of Independence. The Constitution was an effort to promote the ideals of liberty and justice. Liberty and justice brings prosperity. Every nation that maintains a rule of law that promotes liberty and justice will have prosperity. Any nation that substitutes rule of law for...

A guilty pleasure, that I surrender to occasionally, involves quizzing my fellow conservative compatriots about the core historical knowledge that is often taken for granted. Long before the Tea Party came along there was a burgeoning conservative movement in America that sought to rediscover and recover ancient principles and ideals of man’s relationship with government. From Goldwater to Reagan, Limbaugh to Levin, and talk radio to the limitless font of internet information, historical truth is making a comeback. Let’s start at the beginning. Before Caesar came the Republic. Res Publica, correctly translated, means “the public thing.” In a Republic the...

A guilty pleasure, that I surrender to occasionally, involves quizzing my fellow conservative compatriots about the core historical knowledge that is often taken for granted. Long before the Tea Party came along there was a burgeoning conservative movement in America that sought to rediscover and recover ancient principles and ideals of man’s relationship with government. From Goldwater to Reagan, Limbaugh to Levin, and talk radio to the limitless font of internet information, historical truth is making a comeback. Let’s start at the beginning. Before Caesar came the Republic. Res Publica, correctly translated, means “the public thing.” In a Republic the...

I used to spend hours in a library going from book to fascinating book ...

............The Founders did not live in some ivory tower where the stench of politics never befouled the sacred air. They knew that their plan for a representative republic was not in itself a guarantee against governmental tyranny. Here's James Madison in Federalist 58: "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." What this means is that the framers never intended...

From the journals of the video game: "The Old Republic". Your sith lord is a jerk, but how bad can it be? Sex, gratuitous violence, snappy quips, megalomania, greed and disco-grunge dancing galore!!!! Subtle jokes and a reference to the "Never Ending Story" will make you LOL. Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63vWEzqjn2U Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWrLwD2hMdk Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4dWvLsUFQ Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d2JZj7G_60 Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIULbosH_f4

The South by Southwest Festival (known as SXSW), held every March in Austin, Texas, bills itself as a "unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies." This year, things got a bit more political, adding a few sparks to its normal techie, artsy-fartsy flair. During a public discourse between former Vice President Al Gore Jr. and Sean Parker (who co-founded Napster), Gore said, “Our democracy has been hacked,” and urged the audience to commence an “Occupy Democracy” movement. This is eerily reminiscent of statements he made to Keith Olbermann last August, including the idea that we should work...

The United States may be a republic, but it’s democracy that Americans cherish. After all, that’s why we got into Iraq, right? To take out a dictator and spread democracy. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” “One person, one vote.” We are an egalitarian society that treasures the mandate of its citizenry. But more than a decade’s worth research suggests that the citizenry is too dumb to pick the best leaders. They know what's best for the country. Work by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning and then-colleague Justin Kruger found that “incompetent people are inherently unable...

At the Occupy Strategy Session at New York University, all the usual suspects are once again targeting capitalism. This isn't surprising, anybody who digs into the roots of all this 'Occupy' stuff will quickly see that it's all based on progressivism and central planning - with a hint of socialism, a hint of communism, and they have even teamed up with Islamists. But this business about the incompatibility of capitalism and democracy. What makes that true? In 1887, Woodrow Wilson wrote an essay titled "Socialism and Democracy", and in my original entry I wrote an observation about mobs. We've all...

Anyone else experience this? It's just on Free Republic only.

For about a week now, in multiple browsers and from iPad and iMac, Free Republic has been deadly slow. Frequently it times out waiting to load. This is on FIOS at top speed, both wireless and wired. No other site is even slightly slow for me. I don't see any other threads mentioning this, and I've posted to the yahoo group with no responses, so I am assuming it's me. What could I be doing wrong? Or has this been your experience too? What's up?

Persists everywhere. The idea that voting or individual activism will fix the trouble we’re in is a big part of what got us into this mess to begin with. Our republic is strong, and is filled with hardworking people who will carry it anywhere it wants to go. Pitiably, the leadership of that Republic has been usurped by a shadow empire, a ruling class which has it’s own set of rules and it’s own hierarchy. Nobody “Elected” Rahm Immanuel, nobody ran against him. Wingnuthead got “voted” in despite being as worthless as tits on a boar. The Ruling Class, despite...

The Republic of The United States of America was founded in 1776. It was founded as a Republic and not a Pure Democracy, because the Founders knew that a Pure Democracy and independence cannot coexist in the long term. One of the key differences between a republic and a democracy is the requirement for an informed electorate. A Republic requires that suffrage be as wide as possible, while not including those who are likely to be detrimental to the continuing independence of the Republic. As an analogy, Democracy is like theoretical mathematics, while Republic is like engineering. Theoretical mathematics is...

Youtube link, also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE&feature=player_embedded

The national spokesperson for group that seeking to take the selection of the president out of the hands of the Electoral College says the movement is gaining steam. Tom Golisano of the “National Popular Vote Initiative” was in Des Moines Thursday talking about the effort. The group needs states that have 270 — or half of the electoral college votes — to approve the change to make it happen. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm around our position now, it’s more a feeling of when and no if it’s going to happen,” Golisano. He says 10 or 11 states have signed...

It sounds quaint. But giving Washington less control over our affairs, and the states more control, is a bad idea. Here's why: People move. Anybody who has relocated from one state to another knows there's a huge hassle factor associated with simply adapting to a different set of rules. There's also the dubious proposition that states manage their business better than the federal government. It's true that nearly all states are required to balance their budgets, which creates a degree of spending discipline. But that's hardly the same thing as responsible government. It's worth keeping in mind that the national...

"Your people, sir, is ... a great beast." So Alexander Hamilton reputedly said in an argument with Thomas Jefferson. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Hamilton explained: "Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship." In his column, "Democracy Versus Liberty," Walter Williams cites Hamilton, James Madison and John Randolph, who wrote of "the follies and turbulence" of democracy, and John Adams: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There...

Democracy is exactly what we have in America today and it’s even worse than Thomas Jefferson warned when he said - “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” It’s really much worse than Jefferson indicated… it’s what Karl Marx said it was, “the road to socialism.” Thomas Jefferson was a well-traveled and studied individual, commissioned to write our Declaration of Independence at the founding of our country and a significant player in the formation of our Constitutional Representative Republic. He was also one of...

This occurred in a Farmingdale, NY courtroom. Video is proof.

The intellectual struggle worldwide today is now between the beliefs encapsulated in the American Revolution and those in the French. It is interests versus reason.

When the cover was blown from Osama bin Laden’s last gift to Pakistan – his choice of residence in Abbottabad, a favour we could have done without – it was only to be expected that the guardians of national ideology would be rendered speechless. There are some situations too embarrassing for words and this was one of them. A frank admission of failure might have been more sensible. But this being no part of the Pakistani tradition, our guardians did the next best thing: climb the ramparts and blow the trumpets of national dignity and honour. For about 10-12 days...

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” ~ Thomas Jefferson Our country and it’s supreme law (the constitution) was founded by revolutionaries, our Founding Fathers. Men who literally had a price placed on their heads by King George of England. Their capture would have meant a cruel and certain death as public examples to what happens to the enemies of the crown. Yet they persisted! “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, [they did] mutually pledge to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes, and [their] sacred Honor” (Declaration of Independence). Because of their sacrifice we enjoy relative freedom...

Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “compiled a list of some of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders;” it’s being publicized by the far-left MoveOn.org (financed by George Soros), NPR and other Progressive websites. Five on the list are also on the UN Global Compact’s “selection” of corporations as follows: * General Electric: CEO Jeffrey Immelt is also Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, a top contributor to Obama’s 2008 campaign at $499,130 and one of the two biggest recipients of government contracts since Obama took the White House. * Bank of America: The Board Chairman of BofA, Charles O. Holliday, serves...

1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army. Two days earlier he had been offered command of the Union army.