Free Republic

From the moment customers enter the front door, the Conservative Cafe is serving up caffeinated doctrine. Ann Coulter books sit stacked by the fireplace, and a picture of Ronald Reagan hangs on the wall. Fox News plays on all the televisions, and stock market quotes scroll along an electronic ticker above the cash register.Behind the counter, owner Dave Beckham smiles proudly in a khaki T-shirt that reads "Zip It, Hippie." The shirt is for sale at the Crown Point, Ind., cafe, along with ones that say "Peace through Superior Firepower.""It's a change from the traditional liberal bastion coffeehouses," Beckham says....

Call me Ishmael. Not so long ago I found myself back in New York, walking the windy spring streets around Times Square, trying to find a place I couldn't get out of my mind ever since I'd first found it there a couple years back. Perhaps it was too formidable a task, for the place was not so much a physical locale, nor a building, but it was more of a feeling. The doorway to it had been inside the Times Square Brewery, and though the Brewery was still there, the doorway to the feeling was gone, and search as...