Free Republic

A stone box believed to have once held the bones of Jesus’ brother James is now on display in Atlanta, Georgia. If authentic, “The James Ossuary” is the only archaeological find directly attributed to Jesus’ family, according to Pullman Yards, the event venue displaying the object. The box is “considered the most significant item ever discovered from the time of Christ,” ... Etched into the 2,000-year-old limestone relic are the words, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” in ancient Aramaic, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.... “We’ve analyzed the likelihood of someone with this combination of names living in...

Myself and four of my friends recently returned from Las Vegas after a golf/guys trip. We left from Austin on Thursday the 16th and returned on Sunday the 19th. One of the guys, the one I shared a room with was not feeling great on Sunday when we were heading back to Austin. I attributed it to a hangover, but on Monday, he sent out a text to the group that he had Covid. After getting that news, we all took tests and only one other guy tested positive. On Thursday another started feeling bad and he retested positive. The...

The critic of his time must accept the risk of being accused of negativism, but he can console himself with the knowledge that serious criticism has its source in a definite position with its own standards, values and objectives. By the 1950′s, with the work of such men as Albert J. Nock, T. S. Eliot, Richard Weaver and Eliseo Vivas, among many others, the criticism of liberalism had grown into a substantial literature; what was lacking was a point of view, or attitude, movement together and give it coherence and identity. It was the great achievement, one can say historic...

I just received an enquiry from a bright 20 year old sophomore, who is majoring in philosophy. She is interested in writing a paper on the historical development of ideological conservatism, and its various historical and present-day versions and offshoots, but she does not know much about the subject. Obviously, I suggested the Conservative Mind, written by the late Dr. Russell Kirk. But it is a dated book, having been published in 1953, and does not have iformation about the developments in American conservatism since then? Does anyone know of a book written in recent years, which traces the historical...

<p>That facility of the French for generalization, which turned the world upside down, reached its apex in Alexis de Tocqueville. He employed the methods and the style of the philosophes and the Encyclopedists to alleviate, more than a half-century later, the consequences of their books. In some respects, the pupil, Tocqueville, excels his philosophical master, Burke: certainly his Democracy contains an impartial examination of the new order which Buurke never had time or patience to undertake. Tocqueville is a writer who should be read not in abridgement, but wholly; for every sentence has significance, every observation sagacity. The two big volumes of Democracy are a mine of aphorisms, his Old Regime is the germ of a hundred books, his Souvenir is packed with a terse brilliance of narrative that few memoirs possess. Some people besides professors still read Tocqueville. They ought to, because he was the best friend democracy ever has had, and democracy's most candid and judicious critic.</p>

[Pages 197-204] In Democracies there is a besitting disposition to make publick opinion stronger than the law. This is the particular form in which tyranny exhibits itself in a popular government; for wherever there is power, there will be found a disposition to abuse it. Whoever opposes the interests, or wishes of the publick, however right in principle, or justifiable in circumstances, finds little sympathy; for, in a democracy, resisting the wishes of the many, is resisting the sovereign, in his caprices. Every good citizen is bound to separate this influence of his private feelings from his publick duties, and...

[Pages 71-73] Jus cuique, the golden rule, is all the equality that can be supported or defended by reason or common sense... My 'Defence of the Constitutions' and 'Discourses on Davila' were the cause of that immense unpopularity which fell like the tower of Siloam upon me. Your steady defence of democratical principles, and your invariable favorable opinion of the French revolution, laid the foundation for your unbounded popularity. Sic transit gloria mundi.John Adams, son of a Braintree farmer, let his enemy persuade him to write a book. A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of...