Free Republic

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, has introduced a bill that would give farmers and landowners’ property rights remedies against local zoning laws. The bill is inspired by the Martha Boneta debacle last year. But unlike last year’s “Boneta Bill,” HB1219 extends beyond farmers to anyone who owns property. The bill also tackles other issues such as the constitutional rights of farmers. HB1219 says that local governments that violate constitutional rights through zoning must pay their victims the amount of the fines they sought to impose and the actual damages, including attorney fees. The bill also allows the Virginia Attorney General to...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service should take steps to restore public trust in its work, including adopting a taxpayer bill of rights that clearly states individuals' rights to fair treatment from the tax agency, an IRS watchdog said on Thursday. With its reputation for political neutrality hurt by a 2013 uproar over its treatment of conservative political groups, the IRS needs to reassure Americans of their tax rights, said the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an oversight arm of the agency.

While some “journalists” would have you believe the biggest stories of 2013 were about twerking celebrities and over-hyped real-life courtroom sagas, much bigger events were happening with far more lasting national significance. The foundation of an American police state is already laid and making its existence known, while most of the country remains blissfully focused on sports, reality shows, establishment pseudo-news, and other distractions. It would require an encyclopedia to cover all of the injustices, scandals, and brutality that took place in 2013. This list is designed to illustrate certain trends and significant stories from the past year. If Americans...

A forum on an everyday, non-political topic I visit nevertheless has a folder dedicated to politics as a repository for any discussions that start out or veer into political territory. It also gives the mods a method of policing the forums without deleting posts outright. Since I have the lovely FR and its denizens I rarely view the folder but in a moment of ennui I clicked through to it yesterday where a discussion of the minimum wage was, er, waged. It will not shock you to learn that there are all manner of armchair saints out there who believe...

Government needs a basis to exercise authority over people. Citizens must accept government authority. A government lacking acceptance of the people over whom it exercises authority will not endure.

Do our rights come from the government, or do they come from God or from natural law? The founders of the American Republic thought our rights came from God or from natural law. As such, our inalienable rights are the rights of all mankind and are universal, changeless, and applicable to all people, at all times and in all places. In terms of natural law, if man has a nature, then human rights must be in accord with that nature and must be necessary to the flourishing of that nature. If our rights are thus innate and fixed for all...

Up here in the not so frigid north we actually have a real conservative network (The Sun News Network). They have the best voice for conservatism In North America - Ezra Levant Here is a short segment from last night. What-is-a-human-right?

I’m grateful that Kathryn Lopez of National Review keeps highlighting the principled plaintiffs challenging the HHS abortion-pill mandate before the Supreme Court. As the argument approaches, mainstream journalists will speak of the case in terms of “competing rights” or “competing liberties.” On one side are the business owners asserting a religious-liberty right not to purchase an objectionable product, while on the other side are the employees seeking to exercise their right to . . . what, exactly? Simply put, there are no true “competing rights” in this case. There is the right to religious freedom against a naked exercise of...

The science of mine and thine—the science of justice—is the science of all human rights: of all a man's rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is the science which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person. It is the science of peace; and the only science of peace: since it is the science which alone can tell us on what conditions mankind can live...

I believe there is a principle of law under which a person may unwittingly waive constitutional rights. An example of this is when invoking the 5th Amendment right against self incrimination. One may waive this right by answering any questions rather than repeatedly invoking the right when asked questions. Does this apply to the Obamacare website, and once a person signs up, they actually place themselves under the federal government’s jurisdiction with regard to Obamacare by signing up and in the process waive constitutionally protected rights? It seems to me that there is no provision in our federal Constitution granting...

WASHINGTON – Reports of the Russian government abusing its gay citizens are based upon false propaganda by gay rights groups in the United States, Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, claimed at a Nov. 15 symposium hosted by The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society. "Please understand what's really going on in Russia and cast aside all of the propaganda that you hear in the United States and elsewhere. It's just not true," Ruse urged. He was the main speaker at the symposium, "Family Policy Lessons From Other Lands: What Should America Learn?" and...

This evening as I departed Downtown Chicago to catch my train home to the far, far, far Southwest Suburbs I came across a group of folks holding signs that read "1789 Not 1984!" as I approached Union Station. Knowing what it meant, I yelled out "LOVE YOUR SIGN!!" A few of the folks holding those signs approached me to chat and asked "you know what it means?" I said "hell yes, fourth amendment!" That was met with a few smiles and exchanges of cards. I had no idea this group even existed until today but have to say, I'm thrilled...

When written, the United States Constitution took a step beyond other constitutions in how it defined the rights of the people. Most countries bestow rights onto its citizens and inevitably would take them away. The US Constitution went further to define liberty and its source. As such, the founders RECOGNIZED our Rights as preexisting naturally having been bestowed upon us by our Creator. This was a significant break from the established governing mindset. All of a sudden, people had Rights that the government could not control... as they didn't bestow them. The brilliance of the Constitution was to take the...

Illegal immigrants have staged a protest in front of a prominent Chicago hospital, demanding free organ transplants. According to Judicial Watch, all the protesters are from Mexico. This demand is joined by other demands from illegal aliens such as, driver's licenses, discounted college tuition, welfare, and the same civil rights as legal US citizens get. Marchers paraded back and forth in front of the hospital carrying signs with sayings like, “we are also human!” They used bullhorns to lead the chanting of the protesters. In 2007, the cost of a heart transplant was $658,000. The cost of a heart and...

Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told Breitbart News that Attorney General Eric Holder’s claims that amnesty for illegal immigrants is a civil rights issue “profoundly ahistorical.” “If you take a look at the basis of the civil rights movement, it was to have blacks treated in all respects the same as whites or everybody else,” Kirsanow (pictured) said in a phone interview. “What amnesty is doing is setting aside a special class of individuals who are going to put forward and treated more favorably than others. In other words, they’ve already broken the law...

Nearly all of us, at one time or another, refer to our “constitutional right to free speech.” But while this common phrase may seem harmless, it points to a larger misunderstanding of where our rights come from -- a misunderstanding that undermines many of our most fundamental policy debates. The fact is, the U.S. Constitution protects our God-given rights from government. The government does not (as the phrase above implies) grant those rights to us as citizens. This is perhaps the most widely misunderstood aspect of our system of government. The idea that the power of government is derived from...

In a stunning historical error, Los Angeles Times reporters Kathleen Hennessey, Richard Simon, Alexei Koseff reported that "Democrats led the passage of civil rights legislation that marchers pushed for in 1963." In fact, Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, filibustered the bill in an attempt to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) saved the landmark civil rights law from defeat by galvanizing Senate Republicans for a cloture vote to stop the Democrat-led filibuster On June 9, 1964, the night before the historic cloture vote, the 68-year-old...

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In 1975: 1.You could buy an airline ticket and fly without ever showing an ID. 2.You could buy cough syrup without showing an ID. 3.You could buy and sell gold coins without showing an ID 4.You could buy a gun without showing an ID 5.You could pull as much cash out of your bank account without the bank filing a report with the government. 6.You could get a job without having to prove you were an American. 7.You could buy cigarettes without showing an ID 8.You could have a phone conversation without the government knowing who you called and who...