Free Republic

Canceling the Grand Old Party (GOP) was the mission of last week's "Hard Truth" podcast, undertaken by your columnist, her partner, David Vance, and guest Jack Kerwick (introduced here). And on good grounds. The Republican Party has never stood up for you, will never stand up for you and is not going to do what it takes. Past is prologue. As Dr. Boyd Cathey has observed, the "party which never conserves anything" had been exposed as such as far back as 1875. "The great Southern author, Robert Lewis Dabney, writing a decade after the end of the War Between the...

Some months ago, a gentleman who pens anti-Semitic tracts approached me for an interview. I agreed. Being a naïve methodological individualist, I never generalize about individuals. That my interlocutor writes crude anti-Semitic boilerplate did not mean I would not give him a chance to reveal himself as someone other than a crude anti-Semite. After I had already answered his written questions in full, however, he bailed. Here, then, is my reply to one of many loaded and leading questions I was asked and had answered in good faith. A leading question is one that suggests an answer. Since I am...

In a new book, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed,” I argue that Donald J. Trump is the quintessential post-constitutional candidate. In the “Opening Statement,” titled “Welcome To The Post-Constitutional Jungle,” oldies will recognize a nod to the Guns N' Roses classic, “Welcome to the Jungle,” as well as to broadcaster Mark Levin's coinage. We inhabit what Levin has termed a post-constitutional America. The libertarian (and classical conservative) ideal—where the chains that tether us to an increasingly tyrannical national government are loosened and power is devolved once again to the smaller units of society—is a long way away....

Set in the 1940s, "A Christmas Story" depicts a series of family vignettes through the eyes of 9-year-old Ralphie Parker, who yearns for that gift of all gifts: the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. This was boyhood before "bang-bang you're dead" was banned. Family life prior to "One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads," and Christmas without the ACLU. If children could choose their families, most would opt for the kind depicted in this film, where mother is a homemaker, father is a regular working stiff, and between them they have zero repertoire of psychobabble to rub together. Although...

I thought Elizabeth Hasselback, the Republican Party's brain trust on the "View," was a little simple. But, intellectually, she towers above the succession of vacuous, narcissistic, pig-ignorant panelists paraded on Sean Hannity's "Great American Panel." Just as you thought American pop-politics could go no lower, a woman with real curb appeal appears on the political scene. Meghan McCain might just be the greatest ditz to date to emerge from that big tent Republicans keep touting. Meghan made her first major debut on the Rachel Maddow Show. There, in defiance of Ms. McCain's empty refrains and non sequiturs, the left-liberal TV...

Recall, Barack's bride had already cautioned that her husband would not let Americans be complacent. Under an Obama administration, the right to opt out and be left alone – an essential ingredient of American individualism – would be frowned upon. Obama himself has called for "shared sacrifice." "At $3.5 billion a year," reported the Washington Post, Obama's "service plan would "grow the AmeriCorps program … expand the Foreign Service and create an Energy Corps to conduct renewable energy and environmental cleanup projects." Pilfering from the people so as to establish brigades that'll corral them into this or the other service...

Phyllis Schlafly, conservatism's "first lady," had this to say about presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas and left the Republican Party a shambles, yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Huckabee." "He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement," another of Huckabee's countless conservative detractors told the Wall Street Journal's John Fund. "He's hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending...

About one thing Mike Huckabee is right (OK, maybe two): The presidential hopeful told Chris Matthews that if Republicans want to win the 2008 election, they must nominate a candidate who'll appeal to as many independents and Democrats as possible. Dark horse Huckabee expressed the hope that he was the man. Wishful thinking aside, when it comes to Iraq, Huckabee and the rest of the Republican candidates for president, bar Ron Paul, are at odds with the American people. According to every conceivable poll – Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC News/Washington Post – most Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, deem...

I was stocking up on groceries at Fred Meyer when I heard this fretful falsetto. "Honey, look at these ingredients. Oh my God. Check the percentage of trans fats. It's outrageous!" The fussing, believe it or not, was coming from a man. He was hopping up and down on spindly legs, beckoning his wife excitedly. I quickly moved on, thanking my lucky stars that the spouse had gravitated automatically to the hardware section of the store and was itching to move on to Home Depot. Whenever I venture out, I encounter this not-so-new breed of man. Typically, he'll have a...

What is wrong with American conservatism? Hardly anything at all. From tax to immigration to judicial philosophy, conservatives are beginning to set the agenda of public debate. Whole stretches of popular culture are objectively conservative – talk radio and the blogosphere, for example. While there is no dispute as to which tradition belong "The Incredibles" and "The Passion of the Christ," I would venture that "South Park" and "The Simpsons" are conservative-cum-libertarian. They lampoon liberal elites and regularly slaughter the sacred cows of political correctness, diversity, multiculturalism and radical environmentalism. "There is now in this country a conservative movement –...

"Dhimmitude, or dementia" – take your pick – is how commentator Lawrence Auster lamented Patrick J. Buchanan's recent lapses. Mr. Buchanan has come out against the Danes for their finger-in-the-dyke bravery in the face of Islamic bullies – and for foreign aid for Hamas for their election victory in the Palestinian Authority. Before Hamas came to power, Buchanan had been a principled opponent of foreign aid, rightly calling it a racket and a shakedown. But Hamas, a deeply and indelibly anti-Semitic terrorist outfit, changed that. In a positively bacchanalian column, Buchanan exalts Hamas for its "sacrifice" and dedication, and mocks...

At View from the Right, Lawrence Auster observes that “Patrick Buchanan comes out 100 percent against the European papers that published the cartoons of Muhammad, seeing the act as an anti-religious provocation by secular modernists.” Auster notes that Buchanan’s piece was published by “the anarchist libertarian website lewrockwell.com.” This is not to say that the website endorses Buchanan’s view, but it’s important to note that lewrockwell.com is highly selective about content, usually posting perspectives—and people—that comport with its mission. “Patrick J. Buchanan on tweaking the Muslims” is how the column was billed on the site, clearly saddling the “tweakers” with...

Shortly after Michael and Cathryn Borden of Lititz, Pa., were slain by their daughter's boyfriend (David Ludwig), family and clergy – at least those who presented themselves to the media – indicated their readiness to forgive little Lizzie, I mean Kara Borden. Forgiveness at least implies some acknowledgment of wrongdoing. The media, for the most, wouldn't even impugn the girl. After the shootings, Borden hopped into her beau's get-away car. She told him she wanted to "get as far away as possible, get married and start a new life." Only after Borden was confronted with surveillance cameras did she confess...

I've yet to hear one liberal enunciate in the Terri Schiavo case the principle that moral law supersedes man's law. But whether they defer to reason or to revelation , I've heard scores of conservatives articulate the a priori truth in this case – which is: Notwithstanding my own belief in the right to die, the only authority that has jurisdiction over Terri Schiavo is Terri Schiavo. In the absence of a living will or a clear directive from her, a court's decision – no matter which court – cannot be equated with her will. Ditto her husband's hearsay. We...

 The Passion of Principles I intended an unbiased dispassionate review. Though already familiar with and impressed by Ilana Mercer's brilliant fresh approach to some of today's most controversial subjects, I was certain I could provide a disinterested analysis of her book.Objectively BiasedIt is not possible. No one fully alive can read Ilana's book dispassionately. One cannot read a book that evokes continual involuntary utterances of, "Yes!" "Oh, that's right!" and "Exactly!" and remain disinterested. It was not all "yes" and "that's right." There were the occasional, "yes, but ..." and "I'm not sure I'd say it that way." Even those...

A vague anxiety underlies the media's preoccupation with the recent attacks on people by predators – Roy Horn of the "Siegfried and Roy" act was mauled by a tiger, and grizzly-bear advocate Timothy Treadwell and his companion were gobbled up in Alaska while traveling across bear country (without weapons). As more wild animals brazenly make themselves at home in manicured suburbs, people, including media top dogs, worry. And for good reason. They are taught from cradle to crypt that humans have encroached on the animals' territory. On television, "Animal Planet" experts tell them (mostly incorrectly) how rare, essential to the...

WorldNetDaily / CommentaryReturn to ReasonIlana Mercer Bush is a neoconservative Posted: September 10, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com It's a positive sign when conservative commentators rush to defend President Bush from being defiled by the neoconservative label. The tag, thankfully, is becoming a pejorative. They will, however, have to pry Mr. Bush from the loving arms of the self-proclaimed "godfather" of neocons himself. Irving Kristol, who emerged to "sex-up" the already flashy neoconservative "persuasion" in a Weekly Standard article, gave Mr. Bush the neocon seal of approval. The author of "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea," credits the "current president...

Just when you thought the extremist anti-Israel campaigning could not get any worse, from the palsied haters come more charges: Zionism is intellectually consistent with Jim Crow racism. And Israel practices institutional racism – indeed, is an apartheid state, as one libertarian (who else?) blogger bloviated. The writer splutters about how "all manner of basic rights in Israel are granted according to race ... If a person born in Israel is not of Jewish bloodline, he is not entitled to any of these; in fact, he is often legally barred from all of them. However, if he is of Jewish...

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore paid for and placed a granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments in the Alabama judicial building, where he presides. This was two years ago. Predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union could not tolerate the sight of a moral code displayed on taxpayer-funded property. Together with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU alleged the justice had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. A district judge by the name of Myron Thompson then ordered the removal of the Decalogue. Moore appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an...