Free Republic

Every other week, it seems, a new horror expectorates itself from the ungainly thing that is the modern American public school system. A child is suspended for pointing a chicken finger at his fellows and shouting “bang.” A teacher is forbidden to teach a course in black history because his skin color is white, even though there are no african-american teachers available who are certified to teach the course. A New York public school district re-introduces segregation by opening a public high school only open to “gay, bisexual, and transgender” students. California state courts rule the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional...

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp For a great many moons now, I've been trying to figure out what the hell I thought about things like red-light traffic cameras and large-scale surveillance with facial recognition technology. Problem was, I had to admit the damn things were constitutional. Nobody's rights were getting violated, or even significantly infringed, by getting photographed as they walked down the street. The only real problem I could see with them was that a too-broad implementation could be a form of mass public harassment; it's fine for a cop to stake out a streetcorner and watch everyone who happens by, but staking ...

The hype is overwhelming. After fifty years and more of fan's dreaming and waiting, a director --Peter Jackson -- is finally putting film to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Stunningly, it even looks like he's doing a damn good job of it. The reviews so far range from the merely positive to the positively ecstatic; even bespectacled ivory-tower erudites, art-house cynics, and die-hard fans are voicing epoch-making praise. Comparisons with Spielberg and Lucas are falling short, it seems, and many critics find themselves reaching back to Harryhausen, bypassing Harry Potter or Star Wars comparisons to draw parallels ...

blockquote> CL7/A16 (0167) U.S.S. RALEIGH       December 13, 1941 From: Commanding Officer. To: Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet.   Subject: Report of U.S.S. Raleigh's participation in the battle of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.   Reference: (a) Article 712, Navy Regulations.   Enclosure: (A) Executive Officer's ReportAbout 0755 on the morning of December 7, 1941, I was in my cabin drinking a cup of coffee when I heard and felt a dull explosion in the ship. Looking out my airport I saw the water boiling amidships. I started up to the bridge and was met by lieutenant Taylor who ...

     There's a poll up right now on CNN.com . It asks, and I quote, "Would you accept more government involvement in your life if it meant more security against terrorism? ". You get to choose between two answers: "yes" and "no." Translated into plainer language, this little gem of a poll presents that cloying old dichotomy: would you rather have "security," or "freedom?" As astonishing as it may seem, in real life, there are other choices. It may even be that the only true choice lies between "both" or "neither."      It's not just CNN . It's also our government. In ...

     There's a poll up right now on CNN.com . It asks, and I quote, "Would you accept more government involvement in your life if it meant more security against terrorism? ". You get to choose between two answers: "yes" and "no." Translated into plainer language, this little gem of a poll presents that cloying old dichotomy: would you rather have "security," or "freedom?" As astonishing as it may seem, in real life, there are other choices. It may even be that the only true choice lies between "both" or "neither."      It's not just CNN . It's also our government. In ...

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword His truth is marching on. Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps l can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps His day is marching on. Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! ...

Can We Win This War? September 11, 2001 Can We Win This War? Was This Attack Unprovoked? What About Turning the Other Cheek? When we find ourselves in a war we can't win, we must either capitulate or change it to the kind of war we can win. If we find and destroy the perpetrators, we only make them martyrs and guarantee that others will attack us again. But if we absolutely defeat their goals and punish those who support and protect them, we can put an end to this sort of thing once and for all. Those who ...

     Often on the web I'll see people who say things like "Communism would be real nice if it worked." The idea seems to be that Communism would be a wonderful system, but people just aren't good enough to make it work: that the ideals of Communism are worthy, even if the practice of it seems to keep winding up with those dratted gulags and the odd bit of mass starvation here and there. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" sounds like a hunky-dory little phrase, if you don't think about it too much. ...

     It's hard to imagine a story more worth talking about than the ongoing mess in northern Idaho; I could write for days and pages. The story is amazingly complex; most Americans, at this point, probably think of the whole situation as "those kids with the guns in that compound thing," but there is, of course, a whole heck of a lot of information that the mainstream media isn't reporting. Even though the immediate, armed conflict has been resolved, the situation remains intensely compelling: it's as if every separate element of government oppression had been compressed into a single, comprehensive ...

     We need to get more guns into the hands of children. I'm not saying that just for shock value. I'm not saying it because I'm some twisted pop-culture demon out to be the web version of Marilyn Manson, either, nor am I some statist writing out of irony. I mean what I say: we need to get more guns into the hands of children.      Presumably, those of us who oppose gun control measures do so because we believe that guns are a good thing. That is, we believe that the individual ownership of firearms is among the best possible ...

     Every time I get in a gun debate with anyone, anywhere, they always bring up what I like to call "the mystic nuclear weapons exception" to the principle of armed self-defense. The basic argument seems to be that since people don't have a "right" to keep and bear nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, then the absolute right to keep and bear any instrument of self-defense must be void, and hence it's perfectly legitimate to ban handguns, "assault rifles," sporting guns, water pistols, or whatever else. After all, "we have to draw the line somewhere," and because of ...

> >The Met is scheduled to produce an opera on Bill Clinton next year: > >"La Bubba Vita," composed by Giuliani Veritas (in Italian). > > > > Act I. > > > > The Situation: Bill Clinton has been elected President of > the United > >States by an overwhelming margin. The Republicans are devastated, > >angry and are trying to find their way back to power. As the curtain > >rises on the opera, the House Republicans are meeting with Ken Starr > >with the object of trying to find a way to remove Bill Clinton from ...

     George Bush has finally done something I cannot support. He has unveiled " Project Safe ," a new bit of "kindler,gentler" anti-gun policy. Primarily, it's a big government spending program, but since it's spending on new district attorneys and policemen and the like I can for the most part accept that. A lot of it goes to expand the ATF and FBI, too, which doesn't exactly make me Mr. Happy Face either; but, as a law abiding citizen, I can accept that too. I'm a reasonable man. I don't have to like every part of every bill to like ...

Is there a single, relatively short, coherent and comprehensive explanation of the course & politics of the war in Serbia anywhere on the web? Looking for one & can't find.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CL7/A16 (0167) U.S.S. RALEIGH       December 13, 1941 From: Commanding Officer. To: Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet.   Subject: Report of U.S.S. Raleigh's participation in the battle of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.   Reference: (a) Article 712, Navy Regulations.   Enclosure: (A) Executive Officer's ReportAbout 0755 on the morning of December 7, 1941, I was in my cabin drinking a cup of coffee when I heard and felt a dull explosion in the ship. Looking out my airport I saw the water boiling amidships. I started up to the bridge and was met by lieutenant Taylor who ...

     Something tells me this summer is shaping up to be a bloodbath. We're barely into spring, and already we're in the throes of two major, ongoing, progressive street riots -- the race-riots in Cincinnati, and the trade riots in Quebec. We already know that most of California is going to spend the summer enmeshed in a third-world-style energy shortage; we've heard that there's good reason to expect similar shortages in New York and other urban areas. We know what happens when we have blackouts in major cities -- that's right, riots. This summer's going to be a beaut.     The especially ...

     A few years back, I (amazingly enough) read a short story by Larry Niven. I know, shocking. But still. The story was set in a future society where medical, specifically transplant, technology had progressed to the nth degree: pretty much anyone could be kept in reasonably perfect health for pretty much as long as they wanted to be, provided that an adequate supply of organs for transplantation was available. Because of the resultant shortage of organs, a law had been passed, in which the organs of executed criminals were co-opted by the state and donated to those in need. Resultant ...

     Just this past Tuesday, down in West Palm Beach, there was a major victory for freedom in this country. Artis Hardwick, 43, walked away from the courtroom a free man after discharging a firearm on the grounds of a public high school. Seems a gang of bullies had been kicking the crap out of Mr. Hardwick's son, you see, and he'd tried to stop them, and, well, they hadn't listened, not even when he tried to pull them away physically. So he walked over to his car, got his gun, walked back over to the school, and fired one shot ...

As I've mentioned before, I love the Internet, because it means I can get other people to do my research for me. Which is why I was grateful when one Dan Homerick sent me this link; but, conversely, more than a little freaked out after I read it. Essentially, it's House Majority Leader Dick Armey's outline of why he's opposed to congress imposing federal privacy regulations. What it says is, to put it mildly, scary as all get-out. Rest of article & my take generally here.