Free Republic

George C. Leef has written a wonderful, definitive book that lays out the difference between self-identified progressives and conservatives. The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale, A Political Fable for Our Time is a fictionalized narrative about a Washington Post journalist -- a progressive leftist, of course -- who is chosen to write an official biography of the first woman president, Patricia Farnsworth. The facts of this woman’s eight years in office are essentially the Obama/Biden two terms in all but name. Their destructive policies, briefly interrupted by the successful presidency of Donald Trump, are all in play again. The Supreme...

Were the Romans close to an Industrial Revolution? (Part 1) | February 25, 2022 | toldinstone

Do small businesses warrant threatened species protections today, given the decimation they endured since spring 2020? Given the circumstances, they absolutely do. In her forthcoming book The War on Small Business: How the Government Used the Pandemic to Crush the Backbone of America, “recovering” investment banker and New York Times bestseller author Carol Roth details how the government exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to crush the engine of our economy: small businesses. Not only is big government to blame, big business is equally guilty. In addition to small business, Roth warns other decentralized aspects of the economy could be similiarly destroyed....

The lines used to be so clear. On the one side were free markets, free societies, and openly-elected representative governments. On the other, was the force of totalitarianism choking off individual initiative, private ownership of property, and providing a ballot box with but one choice, normally defined as communism. The ideological lines were drawn as a titanic battle ensued across an iron curtain. The Western world united in a mixture of proud, independent, sovereign nations to fend off the creeping black plague that swallowed whole nations and erased their identities. In the end, the “Evil Empire” disintegrated under the weight...

In the 1960s, Milton Friedman reportedly visited a construction site in a foreign country. To his surprise, the canal builders used no heavy machinery and instead armed thousands of men with shovels. He questioned the bureaucrat about this odd choice and the bureaucrat responded that it was a jobs program. “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal,” Friedman said. “If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.” Friedman’s absurd proposal illustrates the absurdity of make-work bias—the belief that conserving labor makes us poorer. Make-work bias was particularly popular during the Industrial Revolution, when legions...

While the Pelosi Left mulls endless impeachment orgies of President Trump, I’ve wondered what holds a fractured American society together. As opposed to monarchies and totalitarian regimes, republican government demands a certain threshold of shared interests, traditions, religion, and outlook. Without this commonality, society breaks down into hostile opposing tribes incapable of self-government. As such, only a strong central authority can keep them in check. Divide and conquer. This is where the Pelosi Left would take America. When I started this squib I was ready to describe the role of Christianity as society’s particular and most important adhesive, that which...

"China is best placed to win a space race, given its well-coordinated, disciplined, technocratic system, able to set and maintain long-term goals," gloomily predicted a recent Washington Post editorial.  Yet current Chinese practice and American history show that precisely America's ability to harness private enterprise for national interests will be the decisive element that will enable the United States to dominate space. China's January 2 historic first of landing a rover on the Moon's dark side occasioned the editorial, which noted that "China aims to be the leading space power by 2045."  Indeed, others have observed that China "today...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A California judge has ruled in favor of a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The judge denied a motion for a temporary restraining order filed on Wednesday against Cathy Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California. According to a press release sent by The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, the order would have compelled "Miller to create wedding cakes for LGBT persons, even though doing so would violate her sincerely held religious beliefs."

This is absolutely stupid. These long drawn out debates within the GOP struggling to settle on the nitty gritty about what and who should be covered and at what price is ridiculous. It's NOT your job, gentlemen. All you are doing is playing into the socialist democrats hands. Please consult your pocket constitutions and discover that the power to make these decisions regarding health care and insurance, etc, is not an enumerated power and is not delegated by the constitution to the congress or the federal government. It's reserved to the states and the people. Get OUT of it!! Conservatives...

It is long past due to educate the low information voters and our indoctrinated students about the benefits of a free enterprise system vs the failings of a socialist system. I suggest below:

Trump’s policies in favor of free enterprise and freedom of speech and in favor of all the Amendments to and protections of the U.S. Constitution and Trump’s positions against terrorists and criminals and repressions of freedom of thought Trump may have inadvertently hurt his cause by saying too much, from time to time, and not always in a politically incorrect way (deemed politically correct by most people), but one 4-letter word he has hardly ever used is “even” followed by the 2-letter word “if.” If used properly, and in enough contexts, these two words, “even if,” have the potential to...

Many of us are gripped with a sense of helplessness in today's chaos-filled world. It seems like terrorism, brutality and unspeakable evil is growing by the day. And it's understandable to think our problems will never be solved by any elected politician or military leader. They won't. In the darkest times in human history, from the days of slavery to the holocaust years of World War II, ordinary people took extraordinary actions to rescue others. In the face of unspeakable evil, regular citizens joined together to build underground railroads and secret passage ways that led people to freedom. Courage was...

The next time a college professor starts lecturing on the importance of a free and open marketplace of ideas beware. He’s probably going to offer a few platitudes before he throws in an awkward “but,” and then shows his true beliefs about free expression. As a general rule, you can ignore everything that comes before the word “but.” It is usually after he utters his first “but” that he really starts to show his ass. At Western Carolina University (WCU) the faculty senate recently showed its true colors on an important issue of academic freedom. They were approached with an...

As the owner of a contracting business, do you feel you are under attack? You should. You are. Capitalism and the free enterprise system are under the most relentless assault seen in the post war era. As a contractor you operate within the capitalist system, but may not feel comfortable defending it. Here are ten reasons why capitalism is morally superior to socialism, or statism (i.e., power and decisions are vested in the state or government). Talk about capitalism’s moral superiority the next time you hear someone parroting the politicians, entertainers, academics, clerics, and professional rabble rousers who are all...

Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton removed a video and photographs of him shooting an AR-15 from Instagram after his race boss—Niki Lauda—ordered him to take them down. The video showed Hamilton wearing ear and eye protection while shooting an AR-15 at a target down range, but some Formula One fans reacted negatively because the video appeared “just hours after a gunman” illegally used a different kind of gun to carry out an attack on a train in France.

Americans have long complained that the dollar doesn't buy much anymore. Suddenly, the dollar's problem may be that it buys too much — a change that has huge implications across the global economy for consumers, businesses, investors and governments. The U.S. currency's value has surged over the last nine months, reaching levels against some world currencies last seen more than a decade ago. In Europe, it now costs just $1.09 to buy one euro, down from $1.37 a year ago and almost $1.50 four years ago. To put it another way, an American tourist strolling the streets of Paris this...

In terms of skills and education, Israel probably has the highest level of human capital per person in the whole world. Yet it’s per capita output is mediocre – in the middle of the developed country pack. Why is that? Because Israel has been slow to adopt capitalism. How do I know that? Because Bibi Netanyahu told me that in an interview in Dallas, several years before he became prime minister. Once he became Israel’s leader, he was been able to do something about it. In recent years Israel has become a center for entrepreneurship, innovation and capitalist spirit. But...

All across the globe, people see the United States as a land of opportunity and dream of making their way here to work hard and enjoy the prosperity that our system of laws helps provide. Cindy Vong made that dream a reality by emigrating from Vietnam, becoming a U.S. citizen, and starting her own nail salon in Gilbert, Arizona. Thanks to a state occupational-licensing scheme, however, Ms. Vong may no longer be free to pursue her vision of happiness.The Arizona Board of Cosmetology—yes, that’s an actual entity—got wind that Ms. Vong’s spa offered a treatment that uses small fish to...

When small and medium-sized businesses are dying faster than they’re being born, so is free enterprise,” writes Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup. “And when free enterprise dies, America dies with it.” For six years, the number of small businesses closing has exceeded the number of businesses starting. The number of business deaths exceeded births in 2008 for the first time in US history and has gotten worse in the ensuing years. Since 2010, the rate of small business closures has increased. In the 1980s, the number of new businesses exceeded those closing by more than 100,000 every year....

“for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births.” Clifton says for the past six years since 2008, employer business startups have fallen below the business failure rate, spurring what he calls “an underground earthquake” that only stands to worsen as lagging U.S. Census data becomes available. “Let’s get one thing clear: This economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends of American businesses. ... the numbers paint an ominous portrait of America in a dire state of decline. “I don’t want to sound like a doomsayer, but when...