Free Republic

[Excerpt] Their arguments amount to “the beehive will make more money under our system than theirs.” Like the Democrats, their positions all proceed from the belief that the “needs of society” or the “greater good” outweigh the rights of the individual. If anyone doubts this, then they should take a few moments to read a transcript of John McCain’s acceptance speech upon receiving the Republican nomination for president last year. The correct argument against all of President Obama’s programs is that they violate the individual rights that government is supposed to protect. Government is an institution of justice, not economics....

President Obama met with Pope Benedict XVI last week at the Vatican. During the meeting, the Pope provided the president with a copy of his new encyclical letter, Caritas In Veritate. Most of the press coverage has focused on the pro-life elements of the treatise and the obvious disagreements between the Church and President Obama over issues such as abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. But it should be noted that the Pope’s encyclical dedicates as much (if not more) time to the issues of globalization and the current economic crisis, and in this respect the Pope and the President are...

Whether it’s a religion or a political movement, the most effective critics are always those who were once believers. Whether it’s David Horowitz dissecting the American Left, Bart Ehrman challenging fundamentalist Christianity, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali critiquing Islam, those that have been on the inside can cut the deepest. Not all critics write academic tomes. Ex-Muslim cum Objectivist Bosch Fawstin's new book will contain several essays explaining his challenging, often controversial views on Islam and the War on Terror. But as a cartoonist, Fawstin is the ideal person to make the definitive anti-Jihad superhero: Pigman. For the past several years,...

A Los Angeles citywide gun buyback program Saturday collected about 1,700 firearms from owners who'd been promised anonymity, "no questions asked" and $100 gift cards. But the program ended up being perhaps too popular for its own good, as organizers ran out of gift cards that provided the incentive and dozens of people, if not hundreds, then turned around and drove off without submitting their weapons.

I'm a dyed in the wool baseball fan and watch a game on TV almost every day. I've noticed that many players, while on the field, cross themselves or point to heaven before and/or after their appearances. It appears to me that this is predominantly a habit with African-Americans and those from Spanish-speaking countries. While white players frequently display crosses around their necks, they seem less apt to signify their faith to other players or to the crowd. Has anyone an opinion on my observation.

EASTVALE - A carjacker on parole was arrested Thursday after one of his victims followed him until deputies arrived. Riverside County sheriff's deputies from the Jurupa Valley station responded at 7:35 p.m. to a robbery call in a parking lot of a business in the 12600 block of Limonite Avenue, according to a sheriff's news release. Deputies got additional information that the suspect used a gun during the incident and that a wallet and cell phone were taken. The victim continued to talk to dispatch to inform them he was following the suspect who was driving a stolen vehicle. Deputies...

DELANO — Here in the birthplace of Cesar Chavez's nonviolent farm labor movement, a 14-year-old who aspired to become a policeman is cut down by gunfire on his front porch. In the farm town of Merced, billed as the gateway to Yosemite, an armed gang member shoots an officer after a vehicle stop -- the first police slaying in the city's 118-year history. And in Red Bluff, which prides itself on its Victorian homes, rodeos, hunting and fishing, a teenage gangster pumps seven bullets into another high school student outside a party. Along the 450 miles of the Central Valley,...

Ever since he started writing his semi-weekly column for the New York Times, Paul Krugman has been a lightning rod of sorts. The Princeton University faculty member has become the Times' resident "expert" on economic issues, and he usually fails to disappoint, at least if creating controversy constitutes success. I admit to being a regular reader of Krugman's columns, and I suspect that many of my fellow economists on all sides of the ideological divide read him as well, which is one reason the Times has made him a featured star. Of course, being of the Austrian School of Economics,...

GOLD AND PAX AMERICANA Nelson Hultberg "Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad," goes the ancient saying. If this is true, then our leaders in Washington are headed straight for the cuckoo's nest. There is a virulent, hubristic madness consuming our political elites in this first decade of the 21st century. It manifests in the intrusiveness of the Nanny State, in the relentless debasement of our currency, in the manipulation of our markets, and in the outrageous taxes that sap the entrepreneurial vigor from our lives. But scariest of all, it manifests in the employment of unbridled...

The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment The Real Threat Is Not Cigarettes But the Unfettered Power of Government By Robert W. Tracinski An epidemic of local smoking bans has spread across the nation--in 25 states from Arizona to Maine to Oregon--under the pretense of protecting people from the alleged threat of "second-hand" smoke. But the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved--the cancer of...

Trashing the Constitution: How misconstruction of the monetary powers and disabilities subverted the Founding Fathers’ intent Presented by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Esq., FAME Foundation Scholar To The Rotary Club of New York March 25th, 2003 at the Princeton Club, New York, NY Introduction by Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director, FAME (Slightly edited for clarity) Dr. Lawrence Parks: Before I introduce Dr. Vieira, I want to spend less than two minutes positioning his topic. Our monetary system is an abomination. It violates almost all of the principles that civilized people hold dear: · From the Biblical point of view, our...

May Day will once again be celebrated by left-wing and environmentalist protestors united by a single emotion: a virulent hatred of capitalism, especially global capitalism. Why the hatred? The advantage of a global economy based on free trade and capitalism is so obvious and so enormous that it is difficult to conceive of anyone opposing it. The benefit is based on the law of comparative advantage: every country becomes more prosperous the more it invests in producing and exporting what it does best (in terms of quality, cost, uniqueness, etc.), and importing goods and services that other countries can produce...

"It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any "conspiracy theory of history;" for a search for "conspiracies" means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds. If, however, any tyranny imposed by the State, or venality, or aggressive war, was caused not by the State rulers but by mysterious and arcane "social forces," or by the imperfect state of the world or, if in some way, everyone was responsible ("We Are All Murderers," proclaims one slogan), then there is no point to the people becoming indignant or rising...