Free Republic

Edmund Burke is considered the most influential orator in the British House of Commons in the 18th century. Born January 12, 1729, one of his first notable writings was an anonymous publication A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756, which was a satirical criticism of the intolerant "woke" deism promoted by Lord Bolingbroke: "Seeing every mode of religion attacked in a lively manner, and the foundation of every virtue, and of all government, sapped with great art and much ingenuity ... the same engines which were employed for the destruction of religion, might be employed with equal success for the subversion...

When the conservative philosopher Edmund Burke wrote REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION he described, with horror, the total destruction of the ancient regime in France, and the replacement of this elegant civilized (if imperfect) Medieval Country with a barbaric, mad, chaotic Reign of Terror. If the Democrats prevail in this election, America will suffer a similar fate: Obamaism on steroids: floods of illegal immigrants; Drug Cartel money and destruction; human slave trafficking; return to Globalist Control with China, EU, and Iran. Total censorship by Big Tech, politicized and weaponized federal agencies and education. Use of medicinal lockdowns to control the...

Many recently celebrated Bastille Day, the day French radical revolutionaries stormed a prison, released its prisoners, and brutally murdered the warden. That fateful day, now more than 200 years ago, set in motion a revolution that led to bloodshed and a devastating loss of liberty in France. It also set the precedent for many future revolutions that took an unbelievable toll on human life.Contemporary British politician Edmund Burke lamented that French Revolutionaries could have repaired the walls of their government and society instead of tearing them down. In an attempt to found an egalitarian utopia, the French Revolutionaries tore...

America has lost a voice that strongly and consistently provided the road map to steer us away from the political and cultural abyss we currently face. That voice belonged to historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, who died Dec. 30 at age 97. Gertrude spoke passionately about how our most important institutions—families, communities, churches, and private enterprise—must be “remoralized,” as it is only through a strong civil society that we can have a strong nation. In her words, people learn to function as “free, responsible, moral adults” in these institutions and apply that responsibility and morality as citizens of a nation. But she...

The propaganda that progressives employ is in full bloom, now that they've spent the last 120 years dumbing us down through government controlled grade schools. One of the favored propaganda devices that they use is that of Samuel Johnson, a well known British author at the time. Johnson examined some of what he heard coming from the Continental Congress and among other observations, asked this question: We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally...

In his speech on Conciliation with America, Edmund Burke said the following to the House of Commons: Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters?--from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel which is refused an entry into the...

In a speech to the House of Commons on March 22nd 1775, Edmund Burke didn’t exaggerate when he warned that his majesty’s North American colonists “augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” Burke understood colonial resistance to Parliamentary rule and monarchal abuse was not a recent development, but rather the predictable outcome of radical concepts developed since the late 17th century. 1 For most of the 17th century, the English government restricted the free flow of ideas in theater plays and print media. This ended when parliament allowed the Licensing Act to...

I just hope everyone there – and all of you out in blogland – keep in mind Bryan Caplan’s Ideological Turing Test: Strive to model your opponent’s thinking as human and well-intentioned, not demonic. I always do, even though everyone is stupid.I love the above quote for a number of reasons, not least because, although laced with irony, it gingerly hints at a fundamental ignorance among vast swathes of the population. Not simply of economics, which, admittedly, is a seemingly abstruse, esoteric area of knowledge that routinely confuses even credentialed experts in their chosen field, but of simple cause and...

"ALL that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." This famous quote was from British statesman Edmund Burke, who was born JANUARY 12, 1729. He was considered the most influential orator in the House of Commons.Edmund Burke stands out in history for, as a member of the British Parliament, he defended the rights of the American colonies and strongly opposed the slave trade. As the bloody French Revolution progressed, Edmund Burke wrote in "A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly," 1791: "What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the...

British citizens think worse of Israel than they do about any other non-European country except for North Korea, a British survey published this week found. Answering the question "Which of the following do you feel especially unfavorable toward?" 35 percent named Israel – scoring two points worse than Iran, the poll found. With 47 percent, North Korea won the worst score, the Chathan House-YouGov poll found.

http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/essence-1957/ A very good list of the essentials of conservatism. Russell Kirk - “Conservatism is something more than mere solicitude for tidy incomes.”

Conservative student group Turning Point USA caused a stir last week by posting pages online from a textbook used at the University of South Carolina. The book calls Ronald Reagan “sexist” and says conservatives “take a basically pessimistic view of human nature” — one in which “people are conceived of as being corrupt.” Several avowed conservatives balked not just at the negative portrayal of Reagan but also at the idea that the conservative persuasion contains a measure of pessimism. On this point, the textbook is right and they are wrong. Russell Kirk was the man credited by William F. Buckley...

...“If government were a matter of will upon any side, [the constituents’], without question, ought to be superior,” Edmund Burke once said. “But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and another decide, and where those who form the conclusion are…miles distant from those who hear the arguments?” Burke further argued that “your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices...

I still remember the shock I felt when I was about half way through Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. I was spending an undergraduate summer meandering slowly from Chicago to New Orleans when, in the middle of a passage about something else, I came across a glancing reference to France’s “captive king”. Stunned, I put the paperback down and stared round-eyed at my fellow Greyhound passengers.Until that moment, it had not properly hit me that the entire book, the most penetrating denunciation of revolutionary excess ever composed, had been written before the Terror started. As a piece of...

I was brought up at a time when half the English people voted Conservative at national elections and almost all English intellectuals regarded the term "conservative" as a term of abuse. To be a conservative, I was told, was to be on the side of age against youth, the past against the future, authority against innovation, the "structures" against spontaneity and life. It was enough to understand this, to recognize that one had no choice, as a free-thinking intellectual, save to reject conservatism. The choice remaining was between reform and revolution. Do we improve society bit by bit, or do...

May 25, 2013 What Is True Conservatism? Peter Wehner In a recent column, Michael Gerson wrote about modern conservatism’s “two distinct architectural styles.” One approach within conservatism, he said, celebrates those who seek to apply abstract principles in their purest form. The alternative approach is more disposed toward compromise, incremental progress and taking into account shifting circumstances.What’s worth noting, I think, is that many of those in the first camp consider themselves to be more principled and authentically conservative than those in the second, who are often derided as RINOs and “squishes,” as part of the much-derided “establishment” and who...

"Law sharpens the mind by narrowing it." --Edmund Burke . . Our governor here in Arkansas now has vetoed not one but two anti-abortion bills that made it past the state legislature this session. One bill sought to protect the unborn starting at the 20th week of pregnancy. The other would go into effect after 12 weeks' gestation if a fetal heartbeat could be detected. Both are now law, passed over the governor's objections. The Hon. Mike Beebe is ordinarily the most reasonable and agreeable of men -- even if he is a lawyer by trade and a politician by...

Political science professor Corey Robin became interested in the conservative movement during the years leading up to the war in Iraq. His new book, “The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin,” challenges conventional wisdom regarding the very identity of conservatism. In critiquing conservatism, most liberals concede the movement was once an intellectual force full of interesting and thoughtful people (from Edmund Burke to William F. Buckley), but argue that this once-respectable philosophy metastasized into a movement full of populist demagogues. Robin soundly rejects that premise (which in many circles has become conventional wisdom), calling it a “radical...

I’ve been reading a fascinating book by economist, Stanford University professor, and Hoover Institute Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell called Black Rednecks & White Liberals. In an essay titled “The Real History of Slavery,” Sowell analyzes the complex reasons why most Americans who were morally opposed to slavery did not side with the radical abolitionists. A whole host of reasons stopped good men — including Washington and Jefferson — from supporting any endeavor to simply declare slaves free and release them into the wide world, and foremost among these concerns was the well-being of the slaves themselves. Thomas Sowell knows things...

THIS IS WHAT A MOB LOOKS LIKE October 5, 2011 by ANN COULTER I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point. No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want -- as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate "Wall Street."You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama,who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch...