Free Republic

The Geert Wilders' kangaroo court trial exposes a sad European sickness that is killing their classical liberalism.  It also reveals why Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization.  Here is what a "moderate" imam has to say about the Wilders' trial: Mohamed Rabbae, chairman of the moderate National Moroccan Council, said outside the court that he hoped judges would force Wilders to issue an apology for his past remarks. "We are not for getting Mr. Wilders in prison. We are for correcting him," he said. (AP Google)WRONG, JACKASS!!! We do not use the coercive...

"One Nation" rally attracts a noisy, smelly collectivist rabble The leftwing astroturf agitator rabble known as one nation took place in our nation's capital yesterday (I know, I hadn't heard of it either.  I learned of it from Left Blogistan denizen Sue) Collectivist complainers failed to get the crowds they expected.  Capital Police at first thought it was a drug deal going down. Bullhorn Buffoon Al Sharpton and bombastic arsonist Ed Schultz headlined the event, entertaining the hundreds who were bussed in by collectivist organizers. Glenn Beck Lives in the Left's Brain, Rent Free, 24/7! Organizers claimed they had...

America is sick.  We The People are not sick, but the body politic is, and our nation suffers from a Carteresque malaise. We suffer from a few cancerous growths, and termites and rodents have eaten away much of our constitutional foundation.  A bipartisan gang of chiselers has turned our federal government into a criminal enterprise that hands out taxpayer money in exchange for votes, but we're wise to their depredations and we're fixin' to clean house.  Literally. In Obama's America, Journalists hide from Muslim extremists The story of journalist Molly Norris, now in hiding from Muslim murderers, saddens me.  It...

The Tea Party movement scares the establishment, including country club Republicans and big business But if you look at the past half century or so you have to think: How come even when Republicans are in charge, even when they're dominant, government has always gotten larger and more expensive? It's always grown! It's as if something inexorable in our political reality—with those who think in liberal terms dominating the establishment, the media, the academy—has always tilted the starting point...  (WSJ - Peggy Noonan)The 1900's:  A Progressive Century The 20th century saw the founders' constitutional republic grow into a monster, gobbling...

Progressive Constitutional Abuse The enumerated powers of Congress are detailed in Article 1, section 8. Governmental abuse of two clauses in particular cause much mischief:  The Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause.  Progressives have been on a Long March over the past 100 years to stretch these two clauses so out of shape that anything whatsoever they dream up may be justified by one or the other.  These two abused clauses are now so capacious that they can hold the weighty and dubious notion that the federal government can compel you to buy health care.  Why not make us...

What is it with liberals and strong, beautiful women who bravely articulate their conservative Christianity? Liberals tend more towards angry, man-hating hags who curse like sailors and have all the charm of a hungry badger.  Or women who look like men.  Gotta hand it to the liberals, they are not afraid of swapping gender roles. So what are liberals afraid of? Are they afraid of a sexy woman who doesn't leverage her God-given beauty for some sleazy purpose, but instead makes her sexuality the exclusive domain of her husband?  Do all liberals wish gang rape upon these women, as Sarah...

Build it or We'll Keeeeeel You! Imam Ralph came right out and said it to Soledad O'Brien when she asked him about the possibility of moving the mosque site:  Rauf gave a reply that boils down to a threat. Rauf said that if his Cordoba House does not get built on his chosen site near Ground Zero, “The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.” As for the message Rauf’s words might impart to the many Americans who oppose his project, his warning doesn’t sound like bridge-building. It sounds like blackmail. (Forbes - Claudia Rosett) Doctor...

John Stossel:  Free enterprise does everything better Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Notice how every government "solution" involves more of what caused the problem in the first place? And how more money and more bureaucracy are always involved as well? "Oh yeah!"  Sneers the progressive.  "What about public roads?  Huh?  Huh?" Private enterprise does roads better than government In 1995, a private road company added two lanes in the middle of California Highway 91, right where the median strip used...

The Rule of Law We’ve lost the original definition of “Rule of Law.” Republicans abused it badly during the Clinton impeachment trials, but both parties bear responsibility for the perversion of this important concept. Hayek gives us the classical definition: “Government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand--rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan ones individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge." He explains that the Rule of Law should not be ad hoc, but it should...

I got into an argument with an old friend and fellow lifetime NRA member over that organization’s support for campaign finance legislation that restricts free speech in exchange for an exemption for itself. Good on the NRA for defending our Second Amendment rights. Bad on them for squashing the First Amendment in the process. Things really got heated when I excoriated our NRA for toying with the idea of endorsing Harry Reid. Reid Voted for the Brady Bill, Erik Erikson reminds us.  Politico explains how politics in America makes such bedfellows possible: First, Reid has a fairly favorable lifetime...

GOP senators should filibuster the Kagan nomination.  I know, they’d lose.  But they would hopefully awaken somnolent American citizens to the loss of their natural rights. In a rare blip of actual substance, Kagan revealed she would not move to overturn a law mandating every citizen eat a congressionally-prescribed amount of vegetable every day.  If Congress can tell us what to eat under threat of prosecution, what can they not do?  (See George Will’s questions for Elena Kagan here and here) Prosecute Kagan for Lying to CongressKagan also professed ignorance of the term “Judicial Progressivism.”  This and her her...

Daley to Ignore Supreme Court Slapdown on Chicago Gun Ban   Richard Daley, owner of Chicago and Crime Boss of the Corrupt Democrat Machine that spawned Barack Obama, has announced he won't let an inconsequential thing like the US Constitution stop him from keeping guns away from law-abiding citizens. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed our God-given right to keep and bear arms, but Chicago progressives are readying a series of fiery bureaucratic hoops a free man must jump through in order to defend himself and his family with a firearm.  I won't stink up this blog by listing them.  ...

America Needs a Political MessiahBarack Obama may command the oceans to recede and inspire unquestioning fanaticism in his disciples, but he is no messiah. We need a real political messiah, whose zeal for the founding fathers' house consumes him. We need a messiah who will make a whip of cords and drive the moneychangers from the US Capitol, which they have turned into a "den of robbers."We need a messiah who will call the politicians what they are: A brood of vipers, hypocrites! who bind up laws to burden good citizens, while they exempt themselves.These political pharisees strain out a...

Adversity does not build character, it reveals it President Obama is living proof.  He is a petty, petulant man who has failed every test since becoming president.  So the child-caesar fired the general.  Good enough, but he had to drag him halfway around the world (where he was leading tens of thousands of America's finest) to publicly kick him when he was down.  Must've been a real ego builder. Here is the true test of these two men Stanley McChrystal, stripped of his command and military rank, will still be a battle-tested man of cast iron character and a...

General McChrystal voted for Obama? Holy crap! WASHINGTON – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday. (Yahoo)Obama gets his Truman-MacArthur moment* I know his advisors think he needs it to increase his stature, but to those who know history, it diminishes him further. Harry Truman was no effete metrosexual unfamiliar with basic military terms.  He was a combat veteran of WW I, serving as an artillary Captain in France. But Obama is the president, as he so often reminds us. McChrystal Earned It He...

"They stole our entire platform, rebranded it 'progressive', and claimed it as their own," declared a CPUSA spokesperson at a press conference in San Francisco. "And we communists say, not so fast! The Communist Party representative explained that government ownership of the auto and financial industries, redistribution of wealth, and free rationed healthcare have always been among the glorious CPUSA objectives: "We held on to these goals through all the difficult years of factional infighting, purges, denunciations, and heroic espionage on behalf of the Soviet intelligence services. (The People's Cube) The Democratic Party responded by kicking off it's 2012 presidential...

Jihad Jackassery is a virulent strain of the same brain disease that spawned Latte Leftism.  Self-loathing liberals who hate the culture that nurtured them are the most susceptible. Latte Leftists Starting from the 60's we have had a phenomenon I call Latte Leftism.  Sanctimonious lefties who got their Latin America experience from Taco Bell U belligerently defend all manner of socialist terror going on south of our border.  Murderers Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Hugo Chavez are their heroes. Now, a new strain has broken out: Jihad Jackassery Ignorant liberals loudly defend Islam and make serial excuses for its...

While government watchdogs did drugs and surfed porn, BP was busy wrecking the Gulf Coast.  Talk is turning again to "Green Energy." I love the environment (it's where the tasty creatures are) and I am cheering for the good scientists struggling to advance "green energy."  Despite what scientifically-ignorant charlatans like Al Gore and Van Jones say, "green energy" is simply too inefficient to compete with fossil fuels.  The science is advancing, but it's just not there yet. Robert Bryce performs a public service by publishing Five Myths of Green Energy in The Washington Post. Here are the Five Myths...

Is libertarianism's (and our founders')belief in property rights racist? I stumbled across two pieces that put everything in proper context. First, David Paul Kuhn did an excellent job explaining why sincere civil rights champions were so incensed.  Then along came Jacob Sullum to reiterate basic libertarian fundamentals and apply them in defense of civil rights for all. Some Anger is indeed Righteous David Paul Kuhn explains why sincere liberals and civil rights activists are upset over Rand Paul's comments concerning the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Shorn of the MSNBC screeching and community activist bullhorn shouting, the argument makes a...

It's The Big Government, Stupid! The Crash of 1929 kicked off the great depression and moved the country left.  Now, there appears to be a movement of similar magnitude to the right.  But is it political? It may be that the movement being seen now is less an ideological statement by Americans and more a reflection of a broad loss of confidence in big institutions, including the government. To the extent that Democrats are the ones who have offered up government programs as the solution to the nation's recession-induced woes, then they are the ones being hurt more now,...