Free Republic

Back in 1784, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to decide whether to appease or stand up to armed Middle Eastern pirates. Sound familiar? John McCain and Barack Obama are now engaged in a long-distance dispute over whether talking to America’s enemies is integral to America’s security (with neither one wishing to talk to poor Hillary Clinton any longer). McCain has not so subtly assailed Obama as an “appeaser” for his stated willingness to sit down with the Iranian leadership about its nuclear weapons program and sponsorship of jihadism in Iraq — and never mind for now if that leadership...

Thanks to the marketing power of HBO, John Adams is no longer the forgotten American revolutionary — at least for a week. Adams feared his role would be neglected. Thomas Jefferson got all the credit for writing the Declaration of Independence, even though Adams was on that committee and had suggested that Jefferson draft it, since he was a better writer and a Virginian. (Adams wanted some geographic diversity to bind the southern colonies with New England in a common cause.) For the same geopolitical reason, Adams proposed that George Washington of Virginia command the Continental Army. Adams also worked...

Alert: Americans who honor the U.S. Constitution’s strict separation of church and state are now genuinely alarmed. Agnostics and atheists, as well as observant people of every faith, fear — sensibly — that the religious right is gaining historic political power, via an ultraconservative movement with highly placed friends. But many of us feel helpless. We haven’t read the Founding Documents since school (if then). We lack arguing tools, “verbal karate” evidence we can cite in defending a secular United States. For instance, such extremists claim — and, too often, we ourselves assume — that U.S. law has religious...

 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Joshua E. London, a Washington, D.C.-based writer. He has written on politics and public policy for many publications, including the American Spectator, Human Events, National Review Online, and Details: Promoting Jewish Conservative Values. He holds an M.A. in social science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Davis. He is the author of the new book Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation. FP: Joshua London, welcome to Frontpage Interview. London: Thank you for inviting...

The current use of the “wall of separation” between church and state as a legal defense for the removal of the expression of American religious culture from governmental institutions and the prohibition of the free exercise of individuals working within them goes contrary not only to the original intent of the Founders and the Framers but also to the religious, political, and legal history and traditions of the United States of America. Courts, county school boards, teachers, and individuals, unwittingly devoid of the knowledge of the substantial role religion (primarily Protestant Christianity) played in the birth and formation of the...

Having a go round with an atheist who flung this at me. Can anyone expound on the overall context and meaning ? I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"--John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson "But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legaends, hae been blended with both Jewish and Chiistian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.--John Adams in a letter to...

Early in the nineteenth century the brilliant French observer Alexis de Tocqueville gave this estimate of America and Americans in his book Democracy in America: “There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than America.” A similar assessment could not be made at the end of the twentieth century. That is not to say that the Christian religion exercises any great influence over the souls of men in any nation today, but the loss of its original influence is certainly as great if not greater in the United...

The American Colonist's Library A TREASURY OF PRIMARY DOCUMENTS Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American HistoryAn invaluable collection of historical works which contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals  The following is a massive collection of the literature and documents which were most relevant to the colonists' lives in America. If it isn't here, it probably is not available online anywhere. ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE (500 B.C.-1800 A.D.)  (Use Your Browser's FIND Function to Search this Library)  Given the Supreme Court's impending decision, the ultimate historic origins of the national motto, "In God We Trust" and...

In the event you missed it, last week's PBS show "Washington Week in Review" discussed the presidential campaign between John Kerry, George Bush, Ralph Nader and Thomas Jefferson. Here is a transcript of the segment: Gwen Ifill (Host): It's not surprising that John Kerry and George Bush are still running neck and neck, but the big news of the week is the huge drop in the polls for Libertarian candidate Thomas Jefferson. CBS is now projecting that he will get fewer votes than Ralph Nader. Michael Duffy (Time Magazine): I have never seen a candidate with such radical ideas and...

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa. Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding...

Do you like having rights the government cannot take away? Do you like being equal? Do you like a country with few laws? These ideas have origins. RIGHTS To have individual rights the government cannot take away, rights must come from a power "higher" than government. The Declaration states "all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men" In other words, rights come from God and government's job is to protect your rights. In his Inaugural Address, 1961, President John F. Kennedy put it...

(Source, Charles F. Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams [1851] Vol. 6, p. 3-4)There have been three periods in the history of England, in which the principles of government have been anxiously studied, and very valuable productions published, which, at this day, if they are not wholly forgotten in their native country, are perhaps more frequently read abroad than at home.The first of these periods was that of the Reformation, as early as the writings of Machiavel himself, who is called the great restorer of the true politics.  The "Shorte Treatise of Politick Power, and of the True Obedience...

THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION Compiled by Jim Walker "Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." -Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782) It spite of Christian right attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of...

George Orwell might have been amused. Academia is well on its way to quite literally becoming Animal Farm. Indeed, the very first day of the latest Modern Language Association (MLA) convention featured a panel on "New Animals: Critical Theory After Posthumanism." "The animality of the dog is very different from the animality of the whale," Moira Weigel, a Ph.D. candidate from Yale explained. She is trying to "present alternatives to the language of domination and violence that still dominates the treatment of animals in films." "Moira's academic interests revolve around the intersections of film, literature, and philosophy," her web site...

In last year’s roundup of the top stories of the year, I argued that 2014 was the year we were all drafted into the culture wars. “This is the year when we were served noticed that we won’t be allowed to stand on the sidelines, because we will not be allowed to think differently from the left.” The signature story of the year was the comet shirt guy, a mild-mannered scientist caught wearing the wrong shirt on television. That case served notice that “To be targeted by accusations of misogyny, you don’t have to be a beer-chugging ‘bro’ who spends...

Academics are still using the Halloween costume controversy at Yale as a teachable moment. One wonders what they will learn. "A white Ivy League lecturer has resigned following an uproar over an email she sent in October suggesting students should have the freedom to wear whatever Halloween costumes they like, including those that may be culturally insensitive," Michael D. Reagan reported in The Christian Science Monitor on December 8, 2015. "Yale University announced on Monday the lecturer, Erika Christakis, would not be working at the school during the spring semester." "Ms. Christakis's email was sent in response to [a] statement...

Yale students are either going to be very embarrassed by what conservative filmmaker Ami Horowitz just did to them, or they’re going to nod their heads in agreement. Whatever the reaction, the American purists among you are liable to be downright frightened. For what reason, you ask? In short, because of how many Yale students saw no problem with getting rid of the First Amendment — the amendment that entitles Americans to freedom of speech, religion, and assembly as well as a free press and the freedom to petition. Speaking of that word — petition — Horowitz was able to...

Yale University was nationally embarrassed earlier this week when political satirist Ami Horowitz released a video showing students happily agreeing to sign a "petition" that calls for the repeal of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.According to Horowitz, he got 60 signatures in less than an hour.Now Yale’s spokesperson has suggested the video doesn’t show what it shows."There are a number of heavily edited prank videos like this one circulating lately in which someone surreptitiously records people while pretending to support a position that they actually oppose, and trying to get the individuals they speak with to agree with...

Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the “safe space” crowd. Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students. “I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.” In fact,...

Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the "safe space" crowd. Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students. "I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion," said Horowitz,...